Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Managers’ Fiduciary Duties In Financially Distressed Corporations: Chaos In Delaware (And Elsewhere), Rutheford B. Campbell Jr., Christopher W. Frost

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The inherent conflict between creditors and shareholders has long occupied courts and commentators interested in corporate governance. Creditors holding fixed claims to the corporation's assets generally prefer corporate decision making that minimizes the risk of firm failure. Shareholders, in contrast, have a greater appetite for risk, because, as residual owners, they reap the rewards of firm success while sharing the risk of loss with creditors.

Traditionally, this conflict is mediated by a governance structure that imposes a fiduciary duty on the corporation's managers-its officers and directors-to maximize the value of the shareholders' interests in the firm. In this traditional view, …

Reconciling Shareholder Limited Liability With Vicarious Copyright Liability: Holding Parent Corporations Liable For The Copyright Infringement Of Subsidiaries, Joshua M. Siegel

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Hedge Funds Can Teach Corporate America: A Roadmap For Achieving Institutional Investor Oversight, Robert C. Illig

American University Law Review

Hedge funds and other private equity funds are aggressive monitors of corporate America. Their investment strategies are designed to squeeze agency costs and other inefficiencies out of under performing companies. Mutual funds and public pension funds, by contrast, have remained relentlessly passive despite their many resources. Rather than seek to improve the performance of their portfolio companies, they generally prefer to exit any investments that turn sour. Why the difference? In this Article, I compare the business environments and regulatory regimes affecting different types of institutional investors. I conclude that the primary reason that most institutional investors do not better …

Panelist Biographies, Introduction By Dana Gold, Editor's Note, Dana L. Gold

Seattle University Law Review

This conference brought together nationally recognized scholars, attorneys, policymakers and activists from across the country who represent a depth of knowledge and range of viewpoints necessary to explore the intersection of corporate and First Amendment law. This discussion was sometimes heated, frequently politically surprising, and always robust. In this symposium issue, the Seattle University Law Review has captured the presentations and exchanges at this unique, multidisciplinary conference.

The Corporatization Of Communication, Eric Chiappinelli, Adam Candeub, Jeffrey Chester, Lawrence Soley

Seattle University Law Review

Our next panel discusses the corporatization of communication.

Curbing Shareholder Voting Groups With A New Philosophy For Washington's Business Corporation Act, Tilman Larson

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment explores Washington's changing philosophy of shareholder voting and how the current developments to Washington's corporate law have impacted shareholder voting group rights. In light of Washington's corporate law history, the underlying reasons for the amendments, and case law, this Comment argues that the recent amendments have altered, rather than preserved, what has been historically the true philosophy underlying Washington corporate law: minority shareholder rights. Part II of this Comment tracks the evolution of voting group rights through past Washington law and until the present Washington Business Corporation Act. Part III discusses the underlying reasons for the amendments, addresses …

Should Corporations Have First Amendment Rights?, Kent Greenfield, Daniel Greenwood, Erik Jaffe

Seattle University Law Review

As Professor Winkler correctly stated, current doctrine emphasizes the rights of listeners rather than the identity of corporate speakers. My argument is, in effect, that this emphasis misses the key point. But I will not deal with listeners directly. I am simply going to assume, rather than argue, that if corporate advertising were ineffective in influencing voters or legislators, normal market processes would eliminate it. I'm going to take it for granted that when corporations speak, it makes a difference in the actual results.

Corporations And Commercial Speech, Ron Collins, Mark Lopez, Tamara Piety, David Vladeck

Seattle University Law Review

Today's discussion will be about a rather famous case-actually, a non-case, Nike v. Kasky.

Corporations And Political Speech: Should Speech Equal Money?, David Skover, Lisa Danetz, Martin Redish, Scott Thomas

Seattle University Law Review

Welcome now to the panel on corporations and political speech. We will explore the First Amendment jurisprudence of campaign finance regulation and some of the more controversial issues raised by corporate involvement in the marketplace of political ideas and elections.

Protecting The Polity: Strategies For Reform, Dana Gold, Solange Bitol-Hansen, Charlie Cray, Bruce Freed

Seattle University Law Review

This session is Protecting the Polity: Strategies for Reform, and we frame this as additional strategies that are actually percolating in a concrete way out in the real world, not just in the world of academic theory, to promote citizen participation in a democracy that countenances corporate influence in the political process.

Keynote Speech, Mark Crispin Miller

Seattle University Law Review

Corporations tend to work against immediate contact. They tend to discourage familial bonds and popular interaction. They are allergic to democracy. Because corporations are usually in the business of selling deviations of various kinds, they tend to want a world in which each one of us is completely walled off in a portable, wonderful land of communication technology. Corporations want a world where everything is done for us. A world where everything is presented to us through a corporate medium, so that what once looked like satire is now commonly represented as an admirable ideal. To that end, I am …

Corporate Personhood And The Rights Of Corporate Speech, Adam Winkler

Seattle University Law Review

My objective here is to provide a little historical background on business corporations and their place in First Amendment law. In the course of that overview, I will also make a few observations that I believe can be helpful in thinking about corporate speech rights. First, I will argue that one aspect of the constitutional status of corporations-the notion of corporate personhood-has not played the central role in shaping corporate speech rights that some believe. Corporations have free speech rights, but they are more limited than those held by individuals. Second, I will argue that there is not a single …