Business Organizations Law Commons^™

It's Tax Not Trade (Stupid), Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

Globalization, trade and other free market policies increase wealth. But the gains from trade are not being evenly spread among all citizens. People and politicians rage against foreigners. But it is the United States tax system, not trade, that ought to change, and wealthy Americans, not workers world-wide, who should be sharing the wealth. A nd it is the form of tax, not just its rate structure, that must reform, so that capital at last bears a meaningful share of the burden.

Voter Primacy, Sarah C. Haan

Sarah Haan

This Article argues that Citizens United v. FEC expanded the audience for campaign finance disclosure to include a group that had never before been held relevant to campaign finance disclosure—corporate shareholders—and explores the constitutional, policy, and political consequences of this change. In part IV of Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court departed from more than thirty years of campaign finance disclosure analysis to treat corporate shareholders as a target audience for corporate electoral spending disclosure, holding that the governmental interest advanced by campaign finance disclosure laws includes an interest in helping corporate shareholders “determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances …

Rebellious Strains In Transactional Lawyering For Underserved Entrepreneurs And Community Groups, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

In his 1992 book Rebellious Lawyering: One Chicano’s Vision of Progressive Law Practice, Gerald Lopez disrupted the conventional understandings of what it meant to be an effective poverty lawyer or public interest attorney. His critiques and prescriptions were aimed at litigators and lawyers similarly engaged in struggles for social change. His book did not address the role of progressive transactional lawyers. Today, transactional lawyers working in underserved communities are far more common. This Essay seeks to apply Lopez’s critiques to the work of those practitioners. I argue here that transactional legal services, or TLS, on behalf of subordinated clients achieves …

The Corporate Conspiracy Vacuum (Formerly "Corporate Conspiracy: How Not Calling A Conspiracy A Conspiracy Is Warping The Law On Corporate Wrongdoing"), J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Jobsohio: Don’T Let Progress Stand In The Way Of Progress, Patrick Martin

Patrick Martin

In February of 2011, Governor of Ohio John Kasich signed legislation that created JobsOhio. This has been a controversial program based on the method that it was implemented and some of the rules that govern the program.it. In November of 2013, ProgressOhio, a citizens advocacy group, challenged the constitutionality of the program but the suit was dismissed by the Ohio Supreme Court for lack of standing by the plaintiffs. There has been no court decision that adjudicates the program on the merits, only on the jurisdictional standing of a party to a suit that challenged the legislation. To date, only …

A Failure Of Substance And A Failure Of Process: The Circular Odyssey Of Oklahoma's Corporate Law Amendments In 2010, 2012, And 2013, Steven J. Cleveland

Steven J. Cleveland

No abstract provided.

Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald

David C. Donald

Quantitative research (QR) has undeniably improved the quality of law- and rulemaking, but it can also present risks for these activities. On the one hand, replacing anecdotal assertions regarding behavior or the effects of rules in an area to be regulated with objective, statistical evidence has advanced the quality of regulatory discourse. On the other hand, because the construction of such evidence often depends on bringing the complex realities of both human behavior and rules designed to govern it into simple, quantified variables, QR findings can at times camouflage complexity, masking real problems. Deceptively objective findings can in this way …

Insource The Shareholding Of Outsourced Employees: A Global Stock Ownership Plan, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

With the American economy stalled and another federal election campaign season well underway, the “outsourcing” of American jobs is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that claims for joblessness benefits are up, but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year’s political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American participation in the World Trade Organization, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the processes of global economic integration more generally appear …

Corporate Social Responsibility In A Remedy-Seeking Society: A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Written for the Chapman Law Review Symposium on “What Can Law & Economics Teach Us About the Corporate Social Responsibility Debate?,” this Article applies the lessons of public choice theory to examine corporate social responsibility. The Article adopts a broad definition of corporate social responsibility activism to include both (1) those efforts that seek to convince corporations to voluntarily take into account corporate social responsibility in their own decision-making, and (2) the efforts to alter the legal landscape and expand legal obligations of corporations beyond traditional notions of harm and duty so as to force corporations to invest in interests …

U.S. Business: Tort Liability For The Transnational Republisher Of Leaked Corporate Secrets, Richard Peltz-Steele

Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Wikileaks, the web enterprise responsible for the unprecedented publication of hundreds of thousands of classified government records, is reshaping fundamental notions of the freedom of information. Meanwhile more than half of records held by Wikileaks are from the private sector, and the organization has promised blockbuster revelations about major commercial players such as big banks and oil companies. This paper examines the potential liability under U.S. business-tort law for Wikileaks as a transnational republisher of leaked corporate secrets. The paper examines the paradigm for criminal liability under the Espionage Act to imagine a construct of civil liability for tortious interference …

The Fed’S New Model Of Supervision For “Large Complex Banking Organizations”: Coordinated Risk-Based Supervision Of Financial Multinationals For International Financial Stability, Cynthia C. Lichtenstein

Cynthia C. Lichtenstein

Large internationally active financial institutions, in particular multinational banks, have the capacity to create profound disturbances in the globalized financial markets in the event of failure. For that reason, these entities are supervised and examined in a manner that is completely different than the ordinary business corporation. This piece describes the new methodology that has been developed by the United States' central bank, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or "the Fed" for short, since 1995, for examining what the Fed calls "large complex banking organizations" or LBCOs and indicates how the system in fact carries out …

The Supreme Court As Prometheus: Breathing Life Into The Corporate Supercitizen, Robert Sprague, Mary Ellen Wells

Robert Sprague

This article examines the legal status of the corporation in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations have political free speech rights equivalent to natural persons. In Citizens United, Justice Kennedy wrote that corporations were disadvantaged persons because the government had intruded upon their freedom of speech. The Citizens United majority portrays a misleading image of corporations. It is true most corporations are owned by small groups of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size and revenues. But what the Citizens United majority conveniently ignores is one particular attribute …

Corporate Integration, Tax Treaties, And The Division Of The International Tax Base: Principles And Practices., Hugh J. Ault

Hugh J. Ault

In this Article, Professor Ault begins with an examination of the evolution of treaty principles for the allocation of and restrictions on international taxing jurisdiction. He then focuses on how economically based principles dealing with the taxation of international income affect treaty policy and presents the basic structural provisions involving the taxation of foreign income and foreign investors that emerge from domestically enacted or proposed integration systems. The technical aspects of the actual treaty practices that have been implemented with respect to integration systems are then related to the theoretical discussion. Professor Ault concludes with an examination of the implications …

The Gratuities Debate And Campaign Reform – How Strong Is The Link?, George D. Brown

George D. Brown

The federal gratuities statute, 18 USC § 201(c), continues to be a source of confusion and contention. The confusion stems largely from problems of draftsmanship within the statute, as well as uncertainty concerning the relationship of the gratuities offense to bribery. Both offenses are contained in the same statute; the former is often seen as a lesser-included offense variety of the latter. The controversy stems from broader concerns about whether the receipt of gratuities by public officials, even from those they regulate, should be a crime. The argument that such conduct should not be criminalized can be traced to, and …

Legitimacy, Accountability, And Partnership: A Model For Advocacy On Third World Environmental Issues, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

To date, there has been little effort to define the characteristics of responsible environmental reform efforts by private citizens and organizations in the United States on foreign environmental problems, such as the quality of foreign aid. Moreover, there have been virtually no attempts to identify a principled role for American lawyers in Third World environmental issues. This Essay will respond to these lacunae by articulating a new approach to advocacy based on a partnership model. In Part I, this Essay identifies the need for American public interest advocates to establish partnerships with directly affected groups on Third World environmental issues. …

The Role Of Science In The Uruguay Round And Nafta Trade Disciplines, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

The central theme of this article is the necessity for deference to decision-making processes of national regulatory authorities in the application of these new trade disciplines and the need for trade-based reviews of national regulatory measures to operate within clearly defined limits. Accordingly, this article first examines and summarizes the relevant texts, including the original 1947 GATT, the Uruguay Round, and the NAFTA texts on standards. Next, the article considers the role of science in the standard-setting process with reference to the copious literature on this topic. Finally, the article takes up the difficult question of the application of the …

Consensual Amorous Relationships Between Faculty And Students: The Constitutional Right To Privacy, Elisabeth A. Keller

Elisabeth Keller

Surveys of college students in the United States revealed that a significant number of students thought they had been victims of some form of sexual harassment. Growing awareness of the magnitude, dimensions, and effects of sexual harassment at educational institutions and the potential for institutional liability have prompted educators to adopt policies to avert such problems. The policies typically prohibit sexual harassment of employees and students and alert the university community to the serious effects of sexual harassment and the potential for student exploitation. Some universities have gone beyond establishing regulations directed at widely litigated problems of sexual harassment and …

Consensual Amorous Relationships Between Faculty And Students: The Constitutional Right To Privacy, Elisabeth A. Keller

Elisabeth Keller

Surveys of college students in the United States revealed that a significant number of students thought they had been victims of some form of sexual harassment. Growing awareness of the magnitude, dimensions, and effects of sexual harassment at educational institutions and the potential for institutional liability have prompted educators to adopt policies to avert such problems. The policies typically prohibit sexual harassment of employees and students and alert the university community to the serious effects of sexual harassment and the potential for student exploitation. Some universities have gone beyond establishing regulations directed at widely litigated problems of sexual harassment and …

Professional Ethics In Interdisciplinary Collaboratives: Zeal, Paternalism And Mandated Reporting, Alexis Anderson, Lynn Barenberg, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

In this Article, the authors, two clinical law teachers and a social worker teaching in the clinic, wrestle with some persistent questions that arise in cross-professional, interdisciplinary law practice. In the past decade much writing has praised the benefits of interdisciplinary legal practice, but many sympathetic skeptics have worried about the ethical implications of lawyers working with nonlawyers, such as social workers and mental health professionals. Those worries include the difference in advocacy stances between lawyers and other helping professionals, and the mandated reporting requirements that apply to helping professionals but usually not to lawyers. This Article addresses those concerns …

Corporate Law And The Rhetoric Of Choice, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

Rhetorically, the notion of choice has always been a powerful one in politics and law. This essay is intended to offer a note of caution about its use. Despite its progressive hue of individual freedom, the rhetoric of choice increasingly tends to be a notion used to defend and uphold existing matrices of economic and social power. This is because the rhetoric of choice is an excellent way to support exiting power relationships. The assertion that people acting within such power relationships are simply choosing their current situation undermines efforts to change those relationships. The powerful stay powerful; the weak …

A Bridle, A Prod And A Big Stick: An Evaluation Of Class Actions, Shareholder Proposals And The Ultra Vires Doctrine As Methods For Controlling Corporate Behavior, Adam Sulkowski, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

Written for the recent conference at St. John’s University Law School on “People of Color, Women, and the Public Corporation,” this paper evaluates recently applied methods of influencing corporate behavior on employment practices and recommends that a dormant legal doctrine be revitalized and added to the “tool box” of activists and concerned shareholders. The methods of influencing corporate behavior that are evaluated include class action lawsuits and shareholder proposals to amend corporate policy. In both contexts, there are procedural hurdles to achieving success. Even when success is achieved, there are limits to the actual changes in organizational behavior that result. …

Emerging Models For Alternatives To Marriage, Sanford N. Katz

Sanford N. Katz

Perhaps one of the most important changes in family law in the past thirty years has been the inclusion of certain kinds of friendships in the range of relationships from which rights and responsibilities can flow. Domestic partnership laws, a phenomenon of the 1990s, may be seen as a natural development from the judicial recognition of contract cohabitation and the legislative and judicial response to same-sex couples who, unable to meet statutory requirements for marriage, have sought official recognition of their relationships. This essay discusses an aspect of certain kinds of domestic partnership laws-their formal requirements and the extent to …

The Misuse Of Tax Incentives To Align Management-Shareholder Interests, James R. Repetti

James R. Repetti

The U.S. tax system contains many provisions which are intended to align management of large publicly traded companies more closely to stockholders. This article shows that many of the tax provisions that have been adopted are of questionable effectiveness because they fail to address the complexities of stockholder-management relations in attempting to motivate management to act in the best interests of stockholders. The article proposes that rather than Congress attempting to identify the best way that it can use the tax system to motivate management, Congress should eliminate tax provisions which subsidize management's inefficiencies in order to encourage stockholders, themselves, …

Coal Law From The Old World: A Perspective On Land Use And Environmental Regulation In The Coal Industries Of The United States, Great Britain, And West Germany, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

America’s reentry into the Coal Age has been one of the major consequences of the Mideast oil-producing nations’ discovery of their collective marketing power, and in this new emphasis on coal the United States is not alone. Like the United States, many industrialized nations with domestic coal reserves had allowed their coal industries to languish under the influence of low-priced, petroleum based energy economy and are now hastening to strengthen their coal production. Different nations approach the regulation of their resurgent coal industries in varying ways, however, and these differences can be instructive to American observers, particularly as they relate …

Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

The functional linkages between law and media have long been signficant in shaping American democratic governance. Over the past thirty-five years, environmental analysis has similarly become essential to shaping international and domestic governmental policy. Environmentalism—focusing as it does on realistic interconnected accounting of the full potential negative consequences as well as benefits of proposed actions, policies, and programs, over the long term as well as the short term, with careful consideration of all realistic alternatives— provides a legal perspective important for societal sustainability. Because environmental values and norms are often in tension with established industrial interests that resist public interest …

The Three Economies: An Essay In Honor Of Joseph Sax, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

How does one evaluate the important public values and impacts of things that do not have a market price and then integrate them into the fabric of our system of social governance? That question lies within most or all of Joseph Sax's work over the years. The first part of this article represents an attempt to distill some of Joseph Sax's intellectual dimensions, beyond those already chronicled in the comments of other contributors to this symposium, with some linked themes and observations drawn from Sax beyond his writings. The second part, instigated by several of Sax's articles, presents "The Three …

Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Response argues that as ATS jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must …

Third Party Access And Refusal To Deal In European Energy Networks: How Sector Regulation And Competition Law Meet Each Other, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

In this paper, we will analyse the issue of concurrence between competition and sector rules and the relation between parallel concepts within the two different legal frameworks. We will firstly examine Third Party Access in relation to essential facilities doctrine and refusal of access and we will identify the common points and objectives of these concepts and the extent to which they provide a context to each other’s implementation. Second, we will focus on how Commission uses sector regulation and objectives as a context within the process of implementation of competition law in the energy sector and third, we will …

Procuring "Justice"?: Citizens United, Caperton V. Massey, And Partisan Judicial Elections, André Douglas Pond Cummings

andré douglas pond cummings

In recent years, two inextricably connected issues have received a great deal of attention in both United States political discourse and in the legal academic literature. One issue of intense legal debate and frustration has been that of judicial recusal, including an examination of the appropriate standards that should necessarily apply to judges that seem conflicted or biased in their role as neutral arbiter. A second issue that has spawned heated commentary and great dispute over the past decade is that of campaign finance law, including examination of the role that powerful and wealthy benefactors play in American electioneering. Both …

Black Tuesday And Graying The Legitimacy Line For Governmental Intervention: When Tomorrow Is Just A Future Yesterday, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Black Tuesday in October 1929 marked a major crisis in American history. As we face current economic woes, it is appropriate to recall not only the event but also reflect on how it altered the legal landscape and the change it precipitated in the acceptance of governmental intervention into the marketplace. Perceived or real crises can cause us to dance between free markets and regulatory power. Much like the events of 1929, current financial concerns have led to new, unprecedented governmental intervention into the private sector. This Article seeks caution, on the basis of history, arguing that fear and crisis …