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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in European Law

Public Primacy In Corporate Law, Dorothy S. Lund Jan 2024

Public Primacy In Corporate Law, Dorothy S. Lund

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the malleability of agency theory by showing that it could be used to justify a “public primacy” standard for corporate law that would direct fiduciaries to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of the public. Employing agency theory to describe the relationship between corporate management and the broader public sheds light on aspects of firm behavior, as well as the nature of state contracting with corporations. It also provides a lodestar for a possible future evolution of corporate law and governance: minimize the agency costs created by the divergence of interests between management and …


Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, Mariana Pargendler Jan 2024

Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, Mariana Pargendler

Seattle University Law Review

How do the corporate laws of Global South jurisdictions differ from their Global North counterparts? Prevailing stereotypes depict the corporate laws of developing countries as either antiquated or plagued by problems of enforcement and misfit despite formal convergence. This Article offers a different view by showing how Global South jurisdictions have pioneered heterodox stakeholder approaches in corporate law, such as the erosion of limited liability for purposes of stakeholder protection in Brazil and India, the adoption of mandatory corporate social responsibility in Indonesia and India, and the large-scale program of Black corporate ownership and empowerment in South Africa, among many …


Religious Roots Of Corporate Organization, Amanda Porterfield Jan 2021

Religious Roots Of Corporate Organization, Amanda Porterfield

Seattle University Law Review

Religion and corporate organization have developed side-by-side in Western culture, from antiquity to the present day. This Essay begins with the realignment of religion and secularity in seventeenth-century America, then looks to the religious antecedents of corporate organization in ancient Rome and medieval Europe, and then looks forward to the modern history of corporate organization. This Essay describes the long history behind the entanglement of business and religion in the United States today. It also shows how an understanding of both religion and business can be expanded by looking at the economic aspects of religion and the religious aspects of …


Sacred Corporate Law, Giancarlo Anello, Mohamed Arafa, Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci Jan 2021

Sacred Corporate Law, Giancarlo Anello, Mohamed Arafa, Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci

Seattle University Law Review

This Article investigates the sacred origins of the corporate form. It sheds light on the sacred rituals performed to establish Ancient Roman cities as legal entities. It discusses the role of the Roman Catholic Church in developing the corporate form and in giving birth to a systemized set of rules regulating corporations, which we commonly call corporate law. It analyzes the limitations to the use of the corporate form in Islamic law as well as the streams of Islamic law jurisprudence that recognize legal capacity to specific entities with religious, social, or charitable purposes. It surveys the characteristics of two …


Breaching The Accountability Firewall: Market Norms And The Reasonable Director, Joan Loughrey Sep 2014

Breaching The Accountability Firewall: Market Norms And The Reasonable Director, Joan Loughrey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines and evaluates the role of market norms in determining whether directors have acted reasonably and the appropriateness of setting a standard of reasonableness that reflects market norms. It argues that although there are situations in which a standard that reflects market norms may not be appropriate for determining the reasonableness of a director’s conduct, it is the best standard more often than not. While this Article focuses on the U.K. director’s duty of care, the question of whether compliance with market norms should be exculpatory arises every time legal or regulatory enforcement depends upon establishing that a …


Corporate Governance Reform In A Time Of Crisis, Christopher M. Bruner May 2010

Corporate Governance Reform In A Time Of Crisis, Christopher M. Bruner

Scholarly Works

In this article I argue that crisis-driven corporate governance reform efforts in the United States and the United Kingdom that aim to empower shareholders are misguided, and offer an explanation of why policymakers in each country have reacted to the financial crisis as they have. I first discuss the risk incentives of shareholders and managers in financial firms, and examine how excessive leverage and risk-taking in pursuit of short-term returns for shareholders led to the crisis. I then describe the far greater power and centrality that U.K. shareholders have historically possessed relative to their U.S. counterparts, and explore historical and …


Comparative Corporate Governance And The Theory Of The Firm: The Case Against Global Cross Reference, William W. Bratton, Joseph A. Mccahery Jan 1999

Comparative Corporate Governance And The Theory Of The Firm: The Case Against Global Cross Reference, William W. Bratton, Joseph A. Mccahery

All Faculty Scholarship

Professors Bratton and McCahery take up the main questions addressed by the literature on comparative corporate governance: whether national governance systems can be expected to converge in the near future, and whether the focal point of that convergence will be a new, hybrid governance system comprised of the best practices drawn from different systems. This Article advances the view that neither global convergence that eliminates systemic differences nor the emergence of a hybrid best practice safely can be projected because each national governance system is a system to a significant extent. Each system, rather than consisting of a loose collection …