Law Commons^™

The Value Of Insolvency Law In The Covid‐19 Crisis, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The COVID-19 pandemic not only has generated a social, humanitarian and public health crisis but it has also led to the worst recession the world’s economy has experienced since the Great Depression.283 As a response to the economic challenges generated by the COVID-19 crisis, many countries are responding with a variety of legal and economic measures that seek to support businesses, employees, and households

Shareholders’ Rights And Corporate Meetings Post Covid‐19, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This short paper reflects on corporate governance and shareholders’ rights during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown has affected the way companies’ organs operate. It is unfortunate that the pandemic took place around the critical time of year when most companies hold annual shareholders’ meetings (or general meetings). How, then, can shareholders exercise their rights? How can the board of directors and senior management function during the lockdown period? Technology naturally provides a solution, similar to online teaching and working from home. However, do virtual and remote meetings serve the purpose of having those meetings? Even when we get …

Stock Buybacks: Some Old Norm Should Remain New, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Corporate payouts, especially through stock buybacks, are never short of critics. COVID-19 has simply energized them further. From the energy industry to airlines and banks, US public companies are blamed for ensnaring themselves into the abysmal crisis in the midst of COVID-19 by handing out cashes extravagantly to buy back stocks years before. However, as astutely pointed out by Professors Jesse Fried and Charles Wang, the critics did not get the facts right even before COVID-19. After taking into consideration the amount of newly raised capital through equity or debt issuances, the cumulative net payouts by US public companies between …

Covid‐19 And The Spotlight On Stakeholderism, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The global disrupter that is COVID-19 has profoundly impacted human life on earth. Lives and livelihoods have been lost. But even for those amongst us fortunate enough to escape such calamity, significant adjustments have had to be made to the ways in which we live, play and work. As the United Nations noted, “[t]his is much more than a health crisis. It is a human, economic and social crisis. The coronavirus disease … is attacking societies at their core”.

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

The United Postal Service—The One Word That Makes All The Difference, Jena Martin, Matthew Titolo

Law Faculty Scholarship

In recent months, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has taken center stage on a number of intersecting issues in our society: the pandemic; the upcoming election (through mail-in voting) and the controversy surrounding the appointment of Louis DeJoy to the position of Postmaster General. President Donald Trump has frequently made derogatory remarks regarding the Postal Service, calling it a “joke,” and has made repeated statements encouraging its privatization. However, President Trump’s rhetoric (as well as the rhetoric of others before him) obfuscates the critical mission of the USPS – to provide service to every American in the country; not …

For Coöperation And The Abolition Of Capital, Or, How To Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society And Achieve A Just Society, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

In hindsight, the term "capitalism" was always a misnomer, coined paradoxically by its critics in the nineteenth century. The term misleadingly suggests that the existence of capital produces a unique economic system or that capital itself is governed by economic laws. But that's an illusion. In truth, we do not live today in a system in which capital dictates our economic circumstances. Instead, we live under the tyranny of what I would call "tournament dirigisme": a type of state-directed gladiator sport where our political leaders bestow spoils on the wealthy, privileged elite.

We need to displace this tournament dirigisme with …

The Covid-19 Pandemic And Business Law: A Series Of Posts From The Oxford Business Law Blog, Gert-Jan Boon, Markus K. Brunnermeier, Horst Eidenmueller, Luca Enriques, Aurelio Gurrea-Martínez, Kathryn Judge, Jean-Pierre Landau, Marco Pagano, Ricardo Reis, Kristin Van Zwieten

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 Pandemic is the biggest challenge for the world since World War Two, warned UN Secretary General, António Guterres, on 1 April 2020. Millions of lives may be lost. The threat to our livelihoods is extreme as well. Job losses worldwide may exceed 25 million.

Legal systems are under extreme stress too. Contracts are disrupted, judicial services suspended, and insolvency procedures tested. Quarantine regulations threaten constitutional liberties. However, laws can also be a powerful tool to contain the effects of the pandemic on our lives and reduce its economic fallout. To achieve this goal, rules designed for normal times …