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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law

The Elephant In The Room: Helping Delaware Courts Develop Law To End Systemic Short-Term Bias In Corporate Decision-Making, Kenneth Mcneil, Keith Johnson Oct 2018

The Elephant In The Room: Helping Delaware Courts Develop Law To End Systemic Short-Term Bias In Corporate Decision-Making, Kenneth Mcneil, Keith Johnson

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Short-termism in corporate decision-making is as problematic for long-term investors as relying on a three-mile radar on a supertanker. It is totally inadequate for handling the long-term risks and opportunities faced by the modern corporation. Yet recent empirical research shows that up to 85% of the S&P 1500 have no long-term planning. This is costing pension funds and other long-term investors dearly. For instance, the small minority of companies that do long-term planning and risk management had a long-term profitability that was 81% higher than their peers during the 2001–2014 period—with less stock volatility that costs investors dearly as well. …


Disciplining Corporate Boards And Debtholders Through Targeted Proxy Access, Michelle M. Harner Jan 2016

Disciplining Corporate Boards And Debtholders Through Targeted Proxy Access, Michelle M. Harner

Indiana Law Journal

Corporate directors committed to a failed business strategy or unduly influenced by the company’s debtholders need a dissenting voice—they need shareholder nominees on the board. This Article examines the biases, conflicts, and external factors that impact board decisions, particularly when a company faces financial distress. It challenges the conventional wisdom that debt disciplines management, and it sug-gests that, in certain circumstances, the company would benefit from having the shareholders’ perspective more actively represented on the board. To that end, the Article proposes a bylaw that would give shareholders the ability to nominate direc-tors upon the occurrence of predefined events. Such …


Broker-Dealers And Investment Advisers: A Behaviorial-Economics Analysis Of Competing Suggestions For Reform, Polina Demina Dec 2014

Broker-Dealers And Investment Advisers: A Behaviorial-Economics Analysis Of Competing Suggestions For Reform, Polina Demina

Michigan Law Review

For the average investor trying to save for retirement or a child’s college fund, the world of investing has become increasingly complex. These retail investors must turn more frequently to financial intermediaries, such as broker-dealers and investment advisers, to get sound investment advice. Such intermediaries perform different duties for their clients, however. The investment adviser owes his client a fiduciary duty of care and therefore must provide financial advice that is in the client’s best interests, while the broker-dealer must merely provide advice that is suitable to the client’s interests—a lower standard than the fiduciary duty of care. And yet …


Insider Trading And Other Securities Frauds In The United States: Lessons For Chile, Dante Figueroa Jan 2014

Insider Trading And Other Securities Frauds In The United States: Lessons For Chile, Dante Figueroa

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Article is a comparative analysis of insider trading law in the United States and Chile. The study summarily reviews the historical, political, and legal foundations of insider trading regulation in both jurisdictions, identifying areas of convergence, as well as areas in which the Chilean securities market could benefit vis- ` a-vis the more advanced experience of the considerably larger American securities market. The Article also highlights the axiological closeness between both jurisdictions concerning the protection of inside corporate information and the fiduciary role of those who intervene in securities markets in their various capacities (as investors, shareholders, corporate officers, …


Corporation Code Sections 309 And 1203: California Redefines Directors' Duties Towards Shareholders, Ernest F. Batenga, Mark Willis Jan 2013

Corporation Code Sections 309 And 1203: California Redefines Directors' Duties Towards Shareholders, Ernest F. Batenga, Mark Willis

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


L3cs: The Next Big Wave In Socially Responsible Investing Or Just Simply Too Good To Be True?, David J. Schwister Jan 2012

L3cs: The Next Big Wave In Socially Responsible Investing Or Just Simply Too Good To Be True?, David J. Schwister

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.


Private Equity Firms: Beyond Sec Registration As An Investment Adviser How To Build And Administer An Effective Compliance Program, Susan Mosher Jan 2012

Private Equity Firms: Beyond Sec Registration As An Investment Adviser How To Build And Administer An Effective Compliance Program, Susan Mosher

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC” or the “Commission”) recently adopted new rules and rule amendments under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”) that serve to implement provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”).1 The new rules and rule amendments under the Advisers Act relate to provisions of Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Act (the Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act of 2010) that, among other things, require certain private fund advisers and private equity firms to register with the Commission.2 This article is intended to assist firms that …


Turning A Short-Term Fling Into A Long-Term Commitment: Board Duties In A New Era, Nadelle Grossman Jul 2010

Turning A Short-Term Fling Into A Long-Term Commitment: Board Duties In A New Era, Nadelle Grossman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Corporate boards face significant pressure to make decisions that maximize profits in the short run. That pressure comes in part from executives who are financially rewarded for short-term profits despite the long-term risks associated with those profit-making activities. The current financial crisis, where executives at AIG and numerous other institutions ignored the long-term risks associated with their mortgage backed securities investments, arose largely because those executives were compensated for the short-term profits generated by those investments despite their longer-term risks. Pressure on boards for short-term profits also comes from activist investors who seek to make quick money off of trading …


Theories Of The Corporation And The Limited Liability Company: How Should Courts And Legislatures Articulate Rules For Piercing The Veil, Fiduciary Responsibility And Securities Regulation For The Limited Liability Company, David L. Cohen Jan 1998

Theories Of The Corporation And The Limited Liability Company: How Should Courts And Legislatures Articulate Rules For Piercing The Veil, Fiduciary Responsibility And Securities Regulation For The Limited Liability Company, David L. Cohen

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.


Directorial Fiduciary Duties In A Tracking Stock Equity Structure: The Need For A Duty Of Fairness, Jeffrey J. Hass Jun 1996

Directorial Fiduciary Duties In A Tracking Stock Equity Structure: The Need For A Duty Of Fairness, Jeffrey J. Hass

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this article briefly describes the key distinctions between a tracking stock corporation and a conventional corporation. It then touches on the reasons why corporations have adopted tracking stock equity structures. Part II articulates the unique legal challenges presented by a tracking stock equity structure. Part III discusses the disclosure that tracking stock corporations have made with respect to these challenges. Part IV briefly summarizes the fiduciary duties of care and loyalty and explores why these duties are ill-equipped to address these challenges. Part V presents the duty of fairness and discusses the duty's elements in detail. In …


Beyond Managerialism: Investor Capitalism?, Alfred F. Conard Oct 1988

Beyond Managerialism: Investor Capitalism?, Alfred F. Conard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Capitalism, in most large public corporations, has been subtly transformed from a system of dominance by the suppliers of capital to a system of dominance by the managers, dubbed "managerialism." In many respects, managerialism is beneficial to investors and other enterprise constituencies, since managers' rewards typically grow with the profitability of the enterprise. But managerialism permits drastic wastes of resources when managers hang on to their jobs after they have become inefficient or spend lavishly to defend themselves against takeover bids. Derivative suits, shareholder proposals, independent directors, and other prescriptions have failed to stifle managerial abuses. This is the message …


Shareholders Versus Managers: The Strain In The Corporate Web, John C. Coffee Jr. Oct 1986

Shareholders Versus Managers: The Strain In The Corporate Web, John C. Coffee Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Part I will seek to understand why firms trade in the stock market at a substantial discount from their asset value. It will answer that existing theories of the firm have not given adequate attention to a critical area where shareholders and managers have an inherent conflict, one that the existing structure of the firm does not resolve or mitigate. Despite the significant changes in the internal structure of the corporation over the last half century that have been described by business historians, there remains a deep internal strain between shareholders, on the one hand, and managers and employees, on …


The Illusory Statutory Basis Of Sec Rule 2(E) Jun 1983

The Illusory Statutory Basis Of Sec Rule 2(E)

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.


Providing An Effective Remedy In Shareholder Suits Against Officers, Directors, And Controlling Persons, Michael H. Woolever Jan 1975

Providing An Effective Remedy In Shareholder Suits Against Officers, Directors, And Controlling Persons, Michael H. Woolever

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Corporate officers, directors, and controlling persons occupy a fiduciary relationship toward the corporation and its shareholders in the exercise of control over corporate affairs. This fiduciary obligation requires that officers, directors, and controlling persons act in good faith and perform their offices in the best interests of the corporation and its shareholders and not to their own advantage. When this duty is breached, a shareholder may bring an action against these fiduciaries, either in his own name or derivatively for the benefit of the corporation. Under present law, however, it may be impossible for an American court to secure jurisdiction …


Financial Statement Insurance: A New Approach To Ivestor Protection, Stephen Z. Surridge Apr 1969

Financial Statement Insurance: A New Approach To Ivestor Protection, Stephen Z. Surridge

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The accounting profession rapidly is moving toward a crisis in liability. Members of the investing public are suing accountants with mounting frequency and success. This article will analyze briefly the origin and present dimensions of the crisis, and then propose a plan for replacing court-imposed liability with insured liability through the offering of financial statement insurance. The essentials of the plan can be simply stated. Insurance would be offered by accountants to investors on a voluntary basis in conjunction with purchases and sales of corporate stock and securities. Individual investors would be able to purchase from the auditors of a …


Corporations - Ratification Of Unauthorized Withdrawal Of Funds By An Officer Of A Corporation, Walter Probst Jr. May 1937

Corporations - Ratification Of Unauthorized Withdrawal Of Funds By An Officer Of A Corporation, Walter Probst Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The president of a corporation withdrew funds from the corporation with which to purchase stock for his own personal benefit. He used this money so as to save the brokerage cost of his securities. A great deal of the money was repaid a few days after its withdrawal. The board of directors, discovering these activities, approved all past actions and present loans of the president. Held, the attempted ratification by the board of directors did not relieve the president from his duty of accounting for the profits realized on the stock purchased with the funds, since there had not …


Trusts-Duty Of The Trustee To Sell Stock In A Falling Market Mar 1932

Trusts-Duty Of The Trustee To Sell Stock In A Falling Market

Michigan Law Review

Securities were turned over to defendant as trustee, among which were issues of common stock in two sugar companies, under the direction that the trustees were authorized to continue all investments of the testator without any personal liability in doing so. In the executor's accounting the stocks were valued per share at $22 and $12.25 respectively. In the present accounting, instituted by the beneficiary on becoming entitled to the corpus of the trust estate, the stocks had fallen to $7 and $.50 respectively. The trust company was experienced in the handling of securities and its officers were advised not to …


Some Legal Problems Connected With Stock Market Transactions, S. Ashley Guthrie, Henry F. Tenney Nov 1930

Some Legal Problems Connected With Stock Market Transactions, S. Ashley Guthrie, Henry F. Tenney

Michigan Law Review

If any one were asked what was the most dramatic event of the last year, he probably refer at once to the collapse of the great Bull Market on the New York Stock Exchange. This was not only a dramatic event, but it was literally a tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people. Securities shrank to less than half their former inflated values and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and paper profits were lost over night, or possibly we should say over two nights, for the crash occurred in two stages, one in October and one in November, …