Securities Law Commons^™

The Uneasy Case For The Inside Director, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of recent scandals and the economic meltdown, there is nearly universal support for the notion that corporations must have independent directors. Conventional wisdom insists that independent directors can more effectively monitor the corporation and prevent or otherwise better detect wrongdoing. As the movement to increase director independence has gained traction, inside directors have become an endangered species, relegated to holding a minimal number of seats on the corporate board. This Article questions the popular trend away from inside directors by critiquing the rationales in favor of director independence, and assessing the potential advantages of inside directors. This …

Securities Intermediaries And The Separation Of Ownership From Control, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The Modern Corporation and Private Property highlighted the evolving separation of ownership and control in the public corporation and the effects of that separation on the allocation of power within the corporation. This essay explores the implications of intermediation for those themes. The article observes that intermediation, by decoupling economic ownership and decision-making authority within the shareholder, creates a second layer of agency issues beyond those identified by Berle and Means. These agency issues are an important consideration in the current debate over shareholder empowerment. The article concludes by considering the hypothetical shareholder construct implicit in the Berle and Means …

Breaking Bucks In Money Market Funds, William A. Birdthistle

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s first and most significant response to the economic crisis increases rather than decreases the likelihood of future failures in money market funds and the broader capital markets. In newly promulgated regulations addressing the "breaking of the buck" in the $3 trillion money market - a debacle at the fulcrum of the 2008 financial meltdown - the SEC endorses practices that obfuscate rather than illuminate the capital markets, including fixed pricing for money market funds, potentially riskier portfolio requirements, and the continued use of discredited ratings agencies. These policies, premised implicitly upon …

Breaking Bucks: Sec Regulation By Obfuscation, William A. Birdthistle

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s first and most significant response to the economic crisis profoundly contradicts widely accepted theoretical and regulatory approaches to financial oversight. More alarmingly, the SEC’s newest rules increase rather than decrease the likelihood of future failures in money market funds and the broader capital markets.

Scholars – of both neoclassical and behavioral economic theory – have long insisted that transparency and disclosure play essential roles in ensuring efficient capital markets and sound financial regulation. Professors Gilson and Kraakman notably argued that the efficient capital market hypothesis, and its reliance on a market …

Investment Indiscipline: A Behavioral Approach To Mutual Fund Jurisprudence, William A. Birdthistle

All Faculty Scholarship

Next Term, in Jones v. Harris, the Supreme Court will be called upon to resolve philosophical divergences on a massive, critical, yet academically slighted subject: the dysfunctional system through which almost one hundred million Americans attempt to save more than ten trillion dollars for their retirement. When this case was in the Seventh Circuit, two of the foremost theorists of law and economics, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judge Richard Posner, disagreed vociferously on competing analyses of the investment industry. The Supreme Court’s ruling will not only resolve the intricate fiduciary and doctrinal issues of this dispute but also have …

Tracking Berle's Footsteps: The Trail Of The Modern Corporation's Law Chapter, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Power Of Proxy Advisors: Myth Or Reality?, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent regulatory changes increasing shareholder voting authority have focused attention on the role of proxy advisors. In particular, greater shareholder empowerment raises the question of how much proxy advisors influence voting outcomes.

This Article analyzes the significance of voting recommendations issued by four proxy advisory firms in connection with uncontested director elections. We find, consistent with press reports, that Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) is the most powerful proxy advisor and that, of the others, only Glass, Lewis & Co. seems to have a meaningful impact on shareholder voting. This Article also attempts to measure the impact of voting recommendations on …

Lyondell: A Note Of Approbation, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Heedless Globalism: The Sec's Roadmap To Accounting Convergence, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has introduced a "Roadmap" that describes a process leading to mandatory use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by domestic issuers by 2014. The SEC justifies this initiative on the grounds that global standardization yields cost savings and an ultimate gain in comparability, facilitating the search for global opportunities by u.s. investors and making u.s. capital markets more attractive to foreign issuers. This Article shows that the offered justification is inadequate. The SEC frames the matter as a choice between two institutional frameworks for standard setting, holding out high quality sets of standards, asking which …

The Case Against Shareholder Empowerment, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For Employee Referenda On Transformative Transactions As Shareholder Proposals, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

This Comment describes and advocates for employee referenda as implemented through a SEC Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal. The proposal provides for a nonbinding referendum amongst all employees whenever the corporation's shareholders must vote to approve a merger, acquisition, sale of substantially all assets, or other transformative transaction. The purpose of the referendum is to provide employees with a voice in the transaction and to provide shareholders with a mechanism for tapping into employee sentiment. Because the referendum would be nonbinding, it is best viewed as an informational tool for shareholders and employees to use in policing management's transactions. Given the …

Shareholder Democracy And The Curious Turn Toward Board Primacy, Grant M. Hayden, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate law is consumed with a debate over shareholder democracy. The conventional wisdom counsels that shareholders should have more voice in corporate governance, in order to reduce agency costs and provide democratic legitimacy. A second set of theorists, described as “board primacists,” advocates against greater shareholder democracy and in favor of increased board discretion. These theorists argue that shareholders need to delegate their authority in order to provide the board with the proper authority to manage the enterprise and avoid short-term decision making.

In the last few years, the classical economic underpinnings of corporate law have been destabilized by a …

When The Government Is The Controlling Shareholder: Implications For Delaware, Marcel Kahan, Edward B. Rock

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.