Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Law (60)
- Business Organizations Law (33)
- Contracts (9)
- Commercial Law (8)
- Criminal Law (7)
-
- Agency (5)
- Law and Economics (5)
- Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility (5)
- Banking and Finance Law (4)
- Law and Race (4)
- Business Administration, Management, and Operations (3)
- Civil Rights and Discrimination (3)
- Corporate Finance (3)
- Finance and Financial Management (3)
- Securities Law (3)
- Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations (2)
- Labor and Employment Law (2)
- Legal Education (2)
- Organizations Law (2)
- Common Law (1)
- Comparative and Foreign Law (1)
- Criminal Procedure (1)
- Environmental Law (1)
- Environmental Monitoring (1)
- Environmental Sciences (1)
- Housing Law (1)
- International Trade Law (1)
- Law and Society (1)
- Institution
- Keyword
-
- Corporate governance (21)
- Corporation law (9)
- Social responsibility of business (7)
- Compliance (6)
- Business ethics (5)
-
- Compliance auditing (5)
- Corporate law (4)
- Corporation law--Criminal provisions (4)
- Trusts and trustees (4)
- Commercial crimes (3)
- Corporations--Corrupt practices (3)
- Diversity in the workplace (3)
- Racial justice (3)
- Commercial crimes--Prevention (2)
- Contracts (2)
- Disclosure of information (2)
- Ethics and compliance officers (2)
- Fiduciary duties (2)
- Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (United States) (2)
- Liability (Law) (2)
- Opportunism (2)
- Venture capital (2)
- Agency (Law) (1)
- Arbitration (International law) (1)
- Automation (1)
- Banks and banking (1)
- Berkeley Business Law Journal (1)
- Boards of directors (1)
- Branding (1)
- Bribery (1)
Articles 31 - 60 of 61
Full-Text Articles in Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics
The Corporation's Place In Society, Gabriel Rauterberg
The Corporation's Place In Society, Gabriel Rauterberg
Faculty Scholarship
The vast majority of economic activity is now organized through corporations. The public corporation is usurping the state’s role as the most important institution of wealthy capitalist societies. Across the developed world, there is increasing convergence on the shareholder-owned corporation as the primary vehicle for creating wealth. Yet nothing like this degree of convergence has occurred in answering the fundamental questions of corporate capitalism: What role do corporations serve? What is the goal of corporate law? What should corporate managers do? Discussion of these questions is as old as the institutions involved.
Relationships Of Trust And Confidence In The Workplace, Deborah A. Demott
Relationships Of Trust And Confidence In The Workplace, Deborah A. Demott
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Fiduciary Discretion, D. Gordon Smith, Jordan C. Lee
Fiduciary Discretion, D. Gordon Smith, Jordan C. Lee
Faculty Scholarship
Discretion is an important feature of all contractual relationships. In this Article, we rely on incomplete contract theory to motivate our study of discretion, with particular attention to fiduciary relationships. We make two contributions to the substantial literature on fiduciary law. First, we describe the role of fiduciary law as “boundary enforcement,” and we urge courts to honor the appropriate exercise of discretion by fiduciaries, even when the beneficiary or the judge might perceive a preferable action after the fact. Second, we answer the question, how should a court define the boundaries of fiduciary discretion? We observe that courts often …
The Monitor-Client Relationship, Veronica Root
The Monitor-Client Relationship, Veronica Root
Faculty Scholarship
After the government discovers wrongdoing by a corporation, the corporation and the government often enter into an agreement stating that the corporation will retain a “monitor.” A corporate compliance monitor, unlike the gatekeeper, is not charged with “monitoring” the corporation in an attempt to detect and prevent wrongdoing. A monitor, unlike the probation officer, is not solely charged with ensuring that the corporation complies with a previously determined set of requirements. Instead, a corporate compliance monitor is responsible for (i) investigating the extent of the wrongdoing already detected and reported to the government, (ii) discovering the cause of the corporation’s …
Deal Deconstructions, Case Studies, And Case Simulations: Toward Practice Readiness With New Pedagogies In Teaching Business And Transactional Law, Michelle M. Harner, Robert J. Rhee
Deal Deconstructions, Case Studies, And Case Simulations: Toward Practice Readiness With New Pedagogies In Teaching Business And Transactional Law, Michelle M. Harner, Robert J. Rhee
Faculty Scholarship
In this short commentary, we explore the use of two interrelated pedagogical methods for teaching transactional and business law. The first method is deal deconstruction, which analyzes the set of final deal documents and outcomes. This method is backward-looking, conducting a post-mortem on business transactions and analyzing the parties’ choices memorialized in the agreement against the legal and financial alternatives. The second method involves case studies and simulations, which are commonly seen in business schools. This method is forward-looking, exposing students to the uncertainties and situational contexts of doing deals and deal-related litigation. Together, these complementary methods help students understand …
Facilitating Successful Failures, Michelle M. Harner, Jamie Marincic Griffin
Facilitating Successful Failures, Michelle M. Harner, Jamie Marincic Griffin
Faculty Scholarship
Approximately 80,000 businesses fail each year in the United States. This article presents an original empirical study of over 400 business restructuring professionals focused on a critical, arguably contributing factor to these failures—the conduct of boards of directors and management. Anecdotal evidence suggests that management of distressed companies often bury their heads in the sand until it is too late to remedy the companies’ problems, a phenomenon commonly called “ostrich syndrome.” The data confirm this behavior, show a prevalent use of loss framing, and suggest trends consistent with prospect theory. The article draws on these data and behavioral economics to …
Contractually Adopted Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith
Contractually Adopted Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
The Delaware Supreme Court recently referred to “contractually adopted fiduciary duties.” Although some commentators, including Larry Ribstein, view fiduciary duties as a type of contract term, the notion of contractually adopted fiduciary duties is incoherent. The need to opt in to fiduciary duties would arise in only two circumstances: (1) fiduciary relationships that do not invoke fiduciary duties without contractual authorization, and (2) nonfiduciary relationships in which the parties wish to invoke fiduciary duties that would otherwise be absent. The first category of relationships does not exist, as courts impose fiduciary duties when the structure of a relationship indicates that …
The Tort Foundation Of Duty Of Care And Business Judgment, Robert J. Rhee
The Tort Foundation Of Duty Of Care And Business Judgment, Robert J. Rhee
Faculty Scholarship
This Article corrects a misconception in corporation law – the belief that principles of tort law do not apply to the liability scheme of fiduciary duty. A board’s duty of care implies exposure to liability, but the business judgment rule precludes it. Tort law finds fault; corporation law excuses it. The conventional wisdom says that the tort analogy fails. This dismissal of tort prinicples is wrong. Although shareholder derivative suits and ordinary tort cases properly yield systemically antipodal outcomes, they are bound by a common analytical framework. The principles of board liability are rooted in tort doctrines governing duty, customs, …
Lawyers In The Shadows: The Transactional Lawyer In A World Of Shadow Banking, Steven L. Schwarcz
Lawyers In The Shadows: The Transactional Lawyer In A World Of Shadow Banking, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
This article examines how the role of transactional lawyers should change in the new world of shadow banking. Although transactional lawyers should consider the potential systemic consequences of their client's actions, their actions should be tempered by their primary duties to the client and by their responsibilities to the l,egal system more broadly.
A More Realistic Approach To Directors' Duties, Michelle M. Harner
A More Realistic Approach To Directors' Duties, Michelle M. Harner
Faculty Scholarship
Expectations for what fiduciary duties can achieve in the corporate context are unrealistic. This segment of the law—and the alleged deficiencies therein—are blamed for corporate scandals, securities fraud, failed business plans, and even a company's insolvency. Risk is, however, inherent in business, and human beings are flawed. Fiduciary duty law cannot change these basic facts. To the extent we think it can, we will continue to be disappointed and frustrated. This essay considers recasting (and to a greater extent codifying) directors’ duties in a positive frame to help foster better director oversight. It does not suggest that codifying greater clarity …
Message In Mortgage: What Dodd-Frank's 'Qualified Mortgage' Tells Us About Ourselves, David Reiss
Message In Mortgage: What Dodd-Frank's 'Qualified Mortgage' Tells Us About Ourselves, David Reiss
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Ethical Issues In Business And The Lawyer's Role, Robert J. Rhee, Carol Morgan, Tamar Frankel, Mark Fagan
Ethical Issues In Business And The Lawyer's Role, Robert J. Rhee, Carol Morgan, Tamar Frankel, Mark Fagan
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Somebody's Watching Me: Fcpa Monitorships And How They Can Work Better, F. Joseph Warin, Michael S. Diamant, Veronica S. Root
Somebody's Watching Me: Fcpa Monitorships And How They Can Work Better, F. Joseph Warin, Michael S. Diamant, Veronica S. Root
Faculty Scholarship
This article explores the rise of the corporate compliance monitor as a condition for settling violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) — a setting in which federal prosecutors routinely impose monitors. If U.S. enforcement authorities maintain their current approach, the reality is that companies facing liability for violating the FCPA are likely to have a monitor imposed on them as part of a settlement agreement. From the U.S. government’s perspective, monitorships make sense for companies that violate anti-bribery laws, making it important for offending corporations to learn how to deal with monitors. Pulling from the authors’ extensive …
International Movement To Deter Corruption: Should China Join?, Paul D. Carrington
International Movement To Deter Corruption: Should China Join?, Paul D. Carrington
Faculty Scholarship
Global concerns over the corruption of weak governments by firms engaged in transnational business are the source of an international movement that emerged in 1997. Special concern is presently directed at the weakness of enforcement of laws enacted in recent times to deter corrupt business practices in international trade that were enacted in response to that movement. One cause of weakness in law enforcement is the failure of China to share actively in those concerns and the efforts to address them. This essay will briefly record steps taken in other nations to address the concerns and the limited effectiveness of …
Public Ownership. Firm Governance, And Litigation Risk, Eric L. Talley
Public Ownership. Firm Governance, And Litigation Risk, Eric L. Talley
Faculty Scholarship
Many going-private transactions are motivated – at least ostensibly – by the desire to escape the burdens and costs of public ownership. Although these burdens have many purported manifestations, one commonly cited is the risk of litigation, which may be borne both directly by the firm and/or its fiduciaries or reflected in director and officer insurance premia funded at company expense. An important issue for the "litigation risk" justification of privatization is whether alternative (and less expensive) steps falling short of going private – such as governance reforms – may augur sufficiently against litigation exposure. In this Article, I consider …
The Dystopian Potential Of Corporate Law, D. Gordon Smith
The Dystopian Potential Of Corporate Law, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
The community of corporate law scholars in the United States is fragmented. One group, heavily influenced by economic analysis of corporations, is exploring the merits of increasing shareholder power vis-a-vis directors. Another group, animated by concern for social justice, is challenging the traditional, shareholder-centric view of corporate law, arguing instead for a model of stakeholder governance. The current disagreement within corporate law is as fundamental as in any area of law, and the debate is more heated than at any time since the New Deal. This paper is part of a debate on the audacious question, Can Corporate Law Save …
Understanding The ‘Corporate’ In Corporate Social Responsibility, Barak D. Richman, Aaron K. Chatterji
Understanding The ‘Corporate’ In Corporate Social Responsibility, Barak D. Richman, Aaron K. Chatterji
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The "Branding Effect" Of Contracts, D. Gordon Smith
The "Branding Effect" Of Contracts, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
In his case study of the MasterCard IPO and its predecessor piece on the Google IPO, Victor Fleischer claims to find evidence of a branding effect of legal infrastructure. The branding effect is not aimed at reducing the potential for opportunism by a counterparty to a contract, but rather at increasing the attractiveness of a product to present and future users or improving the image of a company in the eyes of regulators, judges, and juries. In this essay commenting on Fleischer's work, I endorse the notion that deal structures have branding effects and position Fleischer's work within a larger …
On Public Versus Private Provision Of Corporate Law, Gillian K. Hadfield, Eric L. Talley
On Public Versus Private Provision Of Corporate Law, Gillian K. Hadfield, Eric L. Talley
Faculty Scholarship
Law in modern market societies serves both democratic and economic functions. In its economic function, law is a service, a means of enhancing the value of transactions and organizations. Yet modern market economies continue to rely on the state, rather than the market, to provide this service. This paper investigates whether private provision of law may be superior to public provision. We look in particular at corporate law, where there is a substantial literature exploring the efficiency implications of "regulatory competition" and compare this competition with market competition between private providers. Drawing from the well-known framework of spatial models of …
The Exit Structure Of Venture Capital, D. Gordon Smith
The Exit Structure Of Venture Capital, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Venture capital contracts contain extensive provisions regulating exit by the venture capitalists. In this Article, Professor Smith employs financial contracting theory in conjunction with original data collected from 367 venture-backed companies to analyze these exit provisions. He concludes that the combination of exit provisions in a typical venture capital relationship serves to lock venture capitalists into the investment during the initial stage. In later stages of the relationship, the venture capitalists acquire increasing control over exit by securing additional seats on the board of directors and by obtaining contractual exit rights. The result is a sophisticated transfer of control from …
Spare The Rod, Spoil The Director? Revitalizing Directors' Fiduciary Duty Through Legal Liability, Lisa M. Fairfax
Spare The Rod, Spoil The Director? Revitalizing Directors' Fiduciary Duty Through Legal Liability, Lisa M. Fairfax
Faculty Scholarship
It appears that our society has tacitly agreed to spare corporate directors any significant legal liability—which includes both financial and incarceration—for failing to perform their duties as board members. Thus, over the last twenty years, there has been a virtual elimination of legal liability—particularly in the form of financial penalties—for directors who breach their fiduciary duty of care. This is true despite the fact that we entrust directors with the awesome responsibility of monitoring all of America's corporations as well as the officers and agents within those corporations. More surprisingly, this tacit agreement against legal liability for directors has persisted …
The Exit Structure Of Strategic Alliances, D. Gordon Smith
The Exit Structure Of Strategic Alliances, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Today, many biotechnology firms use strategic alliances to contract with other companies. This article contends that the governance structure of these alliances - specifically, the contractual board - provides an integrated restraint on opportunism. While an alliance agreement's exit structure could provide a check on opportunism by allowing the parties to exit at will, such exit provisions also can be used opportunistically. Most alliance agreements, therefore, provide for contractual lock in of the alliance partners, with only limited means of exit. Lock in, of course, raises its own concerns, and the contractual board - which typically is composed of representatives …
Independent Legal Significance, Good Faith, And The Interpretation Of Venture Capital Contracts, D. Gordon Smith
Independent Legal Significance, Good Faith, And The Interpretation Of Venture Capital Contracts, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Venture capital contracts are inherently incomplete. When interpreting such contracts, courts could deal with the expectations of parties formally by inquiring only about the plain meaning of the contract or qualitatively by enforcing the presumed expectations of the parties, regardless of whether those expectations are expressed in the contract. The Delaware courts have opted for a formal approach. In doing so, they appear to be engaged in an effort to force contracting parties toward completeness. While the duty of good faith appears to respond to the inevitable incompleteness of contracts, the courts largely ignore this duty in preferred stock cases. …
The Critical Resource Theory Of Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith
The Critical Resource Theory Of Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
This Article proposes a new theory to unify the law of fiduciary duty. The prevailing view holds that fiduciary law is atomistic, arising for varied reasons in established categories of cases (such as trustee-beneficiary and director-shareholder) and ad hoc in relationships where one person trusts another and becomes vulnerable to harm as a result. By contrast, the critical resource theory of fiduciary duty holds that every relationship properly designated as fiduciary conforms to the following pattern: one party (the fiduciary) acts on behalf of another party (the beneficiary) while exercising discretion with respect to a critical resource belonging to the …
Toward A New Theory Of The Shareholder Role: A Sacred Space In Corporate Transactions, Robert B. Thompson, D. Gordon Smith
Toward A New Theory Of The Shareholder Role: A Sacred Space In Corporate Transactions, Robert B. Thompson, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Corporate law expresses a profound ambiguity toward the role of shareholders. Courts announce that shareholders are critical to the theory that legitimates the exercise of power - by directors and officers over vast aggregations of property that they do not own. At the same time shareholders have a very difficult time actually making any corporate decisions. In this Article, we strive to define a new role for shareholders by drawing on economic theories of the firm and the structure of corporate law. More particularly we examine the role of shareholders in hostile corporate takeovers, the area where the interests of …
A Proposal To Eliminate Director Standards From The Model Business Corporations Act, D. Gordon Smith
A Proposal To Eliminate Director Standards From The Model Business Corporations Act, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
The Committee on Corporate Laws of the Business Section of the American Bar Association recently adopted amendments to the section of the Model Business Corporation Act (MBCA) enunciating standards of director performance. In place of the current section 8.30, which has been adopted by 42 states, the Committee has adopted two sections - one defining a standard of conduct and one defining a standard of liability for corporate directors. This paper argues that these new standards do not achieve the goals of bifurcation. Moreover, if adopted and used, the new standards will engender confusion and possibly inequitable results. This paper …
Team Production In Venture Capital Investing, D. Gordon Smith
Team Production In Venture Capital Investing, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists engage in team production. Inherent in team production is an incentive problem: team members have an incentive to shirk. The incentive to shirk derives from the inability to monitor team members perfectly and compensate them based on productivity. Economic models of team production teach that solutions to shirking must involve (1) a principal (2) with authority to break the budget by realigning the claims of team members through use of a penalty or a bonding arrangement (3) based only on observations of team output, not on monitoring of individual inputs. This paper analyzes the team production …
The Shareholder Primacy Norm, D. Gordon Smith
The Shareholder Primacy Norm, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Corporate directors have a fiduciary duty to make decisions in the best interests of the shareholders. This aspect of fiduciary duty is often called the shareholder primacy norm. Legal scholars generally assume that the shareholder primacy norm is a major factor considered by boards of directors of publicly traded corporations in making ordinary business decisions and that changing the shareholder primacy norm would have an effect on the substance of those decisions. This Article challenges this view and argues that the shareholder primacy norm was never equipped to mediate conflicts between shareholders and nonshareholder constituencies of a corporation. The origins …
Venture Capital Contracting In The Information Age, D. Gordon Smith
Venture Capital Contracting In The Information Age, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Most venture capitalists provide services to their portfolio companies beyond capital investment. Although these services form an important part of the bargain between the venture capitalists and the entrepreneur, they are rarely specified or even capable of specification in venture capital contracts. This article examines the moral hazard and adverse selection problems facing entrepreneurs who hire venture capitalists to provide value-added services and describes the role of the market for venture capitalist reputation in addressing those problems. Further, the Article speculates about whether advances in information technology - specifically, the World Wide Web - are likely to improve the efficiency …
Corporate Governance And Managerial Incompetence: Lessons From Kmart, D. Gordon Smith
Corporate Governance And Managerial Incompetence: Lessons From Kmart, D. Gordon Smith
Faculty Scholarship
Modern corporate governance scholars often extol an activist role by institutional investors in directing corporate activity. Widely viewed as a solution to the collective action problems that inhibit such activism by individual investors, institutional investors are praised for adding value to corporations through their participation in the decision making process. The ouster of Joseph Antonini as Chief Executive Officer of Kmart Corporation in 1995 might be taken as a vindication of this view, because substantial evidence indicates that institutional investors played a crucial role in influencing Kmart's board of directors to remove him. In this Article, Professor Smith challenges this …