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Full-Text Articles in Law
Rules, Principles, And The Accounting Crisis In The United States, William W. Bratton
Rules, Principles, And The Accounting Crisis In The United States, William W. Bratton
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Securities Exchange Commission move too quickly when they prod the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the standard setter for US GAAP, to move immediately to a principles-based system. Priorities respecting reform of corporate reporting in the US need to be ordered more carefully. Incentive problems impairing audit performance should be solved first through institutional reform insulating the audit from the negative impact of rent-seeking and solving adverse selection problems otherwise affecting audit practice. So long as auditor independence and management incentives respecting accounting treatments remain suspect, the US reporting system holds out no actor plausibly positioned …
Overcoming Resistance To Diversity In The Executive Suite: Grease, Grit, And The Corporate Tournament, Donald C. Langevoort
Overcoming Resistance To Diversity In The Executive Suite: Grease, Grit, And The Corporate Tournament, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Once we open the corporate governance/human resources nexus to deeper inquiry, mutual scholarly interest in diversity and discrimination follows naturally. Firms have complex motives to take nondiscrimination and the promotion of diversity seriously. First, at least certain forms of discrimination are both unlawful and socially illegitimate and hence present threats of potential liability and injury to reputation. Second, human resources demands are such that attracting and motivating a diverse workforce is a competitive imperative. At the same time, however, offsetting economic forces may exist that favor subtle forms of discrimination and hostility to diversity, even if intentional and overt racial …
Gaming Delaware, William W. Bratton
Gaming Delaware, William W. Bratton
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Back in 2000, at the World Trade Center in Portland, Oregon, Time Belden and other Enron electricity traders carefully studied the regulations governing California's new electricity market. Belden thought that the complex rules were "prone to gaming." And game them he did. Under one strategy, Enron filed imaginary transmission schedules, creating nonexistent congestion, so as to draw on the rules' provision of payment to alleviate congestion. They called it "Death Star." Then there was "Ricochet," or megawatt laundering, under which Enron circumvented price caps by exporting power out of California, only to bring the power back later, when the State, …
Some Thoughts On Proposed Revisions To The Organizational Guidelines, Julie R. O'Sullivan
Some Thoughts On Proposed Revisions To The Organizational Guidelines, Julie R. O'Sullivan
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In this article, Professor O'Sullivan, who served as the reporter for the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Ad Hoc Advisory Group for Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, reflects on that Group's work. She concludes that the potential impact of many of the policy fixes within the power of the Sentencing Commission is dwarfed by decisions that lie solely within the power of the Department of Justice or Congress. Specifically, Department of Justice decisions regarding what constitutes organizational "cooperation" may have a determinative impact on organizational incentives regarding compliance efforts and decisions to investigate, self-report, and cooperate in the remediation of organizational wrongdoing. Professor O'Sullivan …
Technological Evolution And The Devolution Of Corporate Financial Reporting, Donald C. Langevoort
Technological Evolution And The Devolution Of Corporate Financial Reporting, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
My claim is that the technology link to the recent disclosure scandals is no coincidence. To be sure, cheating tempts all who seek wealth, in whatever line of business they find themselves. I want to show, however, how the rapid pace of innovation at a number of levels offered motive, opportunity, and rationalization for a downshift in financial reporting norms, which in turn made outright fraud more probable.
Executive Compensation Reform And The Limits Of Tax Policy, Michael Doran
Executive Compensation Reform And The Limits Of Tax Policy, Michael Doran
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 includes a major attempt to reform the tax rules for deferred compensation arrangements covering corporate managers. This paper examines the tax policy and corporate-governance policy objectives of the reform effort, explores the shortcomings of the legislation, and outlines a different approach for future executive compensation reform.