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Full-Text Articles in Law

Enforceability Of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses For Shareholder-Corporation Disputes, Garry D. Hartlieb Dec 2014

Enforceability Of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses For Shareholder-Corporation Disputes, Garry D. Hartlieb

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Investor litigation is an increasingly vexatious field of law. Nearly every time a significant change of control or corporate ownership occurs, plaintiffs’ attorneys file standardized complaints to set in motion class action suits. Ultimately, the settlements shareholders receive fail to achieve the practical effects that parties on both sides desire. Shareholders may receive pennies on the dollar of what they allege was lost by corporate wrongdoing, and, in some cases, shareholders may not receive monetary recovery as the settlement requires only that the corporation to make changes to its governing documents. These suits distract directors and management from the core …


The Compliance Case For Social Enterprise, Joseph W. Yockey Dec 2014

The Compliance Case For Social Enterprise, Joseph W. Yockey

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Social enterprises generate revenue to solve social, humanitarian, and ecological problems. Their products are not a means to the end of profits, but rather profits are a means to the end of their production. This dynamic presents many of the same corporate governance issues facing other forprofit firms, including legal compliance. The author contends, however, that traditional strategies for corporate compliance are incongruent to the social enterprise’s unique normative framework. Specifically, traditional compliance theory, with its prioritization of shareholder interests, stands at odds with the social enterprise’s mission-driven purpose. Attention to this distinction is essential for developing effective compliance and …


A Blended Approach To Reducing The Costs Of Shareholder Litigation, Valian A. Afshar Nov 2014

A Blended Approach To Reducing The Costs Of Shareholder Litigation, Valian A. Afshar

Michigan Law Review

Multiforum litigation and federal securities law class actions impose heavy costs on corporations and their shareholders without producing proportionate benefits. Both are largely the result of the agency problem between shareholders and their attorneys, driven more by the attorneys’ interests in generating fees than by the interests of their clients. In response to each of these problems, commentators have recommended a number of solutions. Chief among them are forum selection and mandatory arbitration provisions in a corporation’s charter or bylaws. This Note recommends that corporations unilaterally adopt both forum selection and mandatory arbitration bylaws to address shareholder lawsuits under state …


Protecting Whistleblower Protections In The Dodd-Frank Act, Samuel C. Leifer Oct 2014

Protecting Whistleblower Protections In The Dodd-Frank Act, Samuel C. Leifer

Michigan Law Review

In 2008, the United States fell into its worst economic recession in over seventy years. In response, Congress enacted the near-comprehensive Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Section 922 of Dodd–Frank, in particular, includes specific provisions designed to incentivize and protect corporate whistleblowers. These provisions demonstrated Congress’s belief that a comprehensive and robust whistleblower protection scheme was essential to preventing many of the abuses that caused the financial crisis. Unfortunately, this section’s inconsistent language has produced conflicting decisions within the federal judiciary. In accordance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”)’s own reading of Section 922, several district …


Reconciling Tax Law And Securities Regulation, Omri Marian Sep 2014

Reconciling Tax Law And Securities Regulation, Omri Marian

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Issuers in registered securities offerings must disclose the expected tax consequences to investors investing in the offered securities (“nonfinancial tax disclosure”). This Article advances three arguments regarding nonfinancial tax disclosures. First, nonfinancial tax disclosure practice, as the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) has sanctioned it, does not fulfill its intended regulatory purposes. Currently, nonfinancial tax disclosures provide irrelevant information, sometimes fail to provide material information, create unnecessary transaction costs, and divert valuable administrative resources to the enforcement of largely-meaningless requirements. Second, the practical reason for this failure is the SEC and tax practitioners’ unsuccessful attempt to address investors’ heterogeneous …


Front Matter Sep 2014

Front Matter

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

No abstract provided.


Formulary Appointment In The U.S. International Income Tax System: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni, Stephen E. Shay Sep 2014

Formulary Appointment In The U.S. International Income Tax System: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni, Stephen E. Shay

Michigan Journal of International Law

An affiliated corporate group consists of two or more corporations linked by sufficient stock ownership to cause them to function as an economic unit instead of as independent economic actors. Thus, an affiliated corporate group engaged in international business is often referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a term that we will use throughout this Article. When corporate members of an MNE engage in transactions among themselves, the prices they employ (transfer prices) will significantly affect the amount of overall MNE income that is allocated to each member and, hence, to the tax bases of the various countries in …


Can Self-Regulation Work? Lessons From The Private Security And Military Industry, Daphné Richemond-Barak Phd Jun 2014

Can Self-Regulation Work? Lessons From The Private Security And Military Industry, Daphné Richemond-Barak Phd

Michigan Journal of International Law

The private security and military industry has undergone a dramatic shift over the past decade—from an under-regulated sphere of activity to one in which an array of self-regulatory schemes has emerged. These regulatory initiatives took shape as states, security companies, and the broader public recognized the need to clarify the legal framework applicable to private security and military companies. Private contractors, once regarded as mercenaries, have over the past two decades played an increasingly central role in support of modern militaries. Reasons for this phenomenon range from budgetary policy to the need for specialized expertise most readily available in the …


Front Matter May 2014

Front Matter

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

No abstract provided.


A Disclosure-Focused Approach To Compelled Commercial Speech, Andrew C. Budzinski May 2014

A Disclosure-Focused Approach To Compelled Commercial Speech, Andrew C. Budzinski

Michigan Law Review

In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration passed a rule revising compelled disclaimers on tobacco products pursuant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The rule required that tobacco warnings include something new: all tobacco products now had to bear one of nine graphic images to accompany the text. Tobacco companies filed suit contesting the constitutionality of the rule, arguing that the government violated their right to free commercial speech by compelling disclosure of the graphic content. Yet First Amendment jurisprudence lacks a doctrinally consistent standard for reviewing such compelled disclosures. Courts’ analyses typically depend on whether the …


Aftermarketfailure: Windows Xp's End Of Support, Andrew Tutt Apr 2014

Aftermarketfailure: Windows Xp's End Of Support, Andrew Tutt

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

After 12 years, support for Windows XP will end on April 8, 2014. So proclaims a Microsoft website with a helpful clock counting down the days. "What does this mean?" the website asks. "It means you should take action." You should "migrate to a current supported operating system - such as Windows 8.1 - so you can receive regular security updates to protect [your] computer from malicious attacks." The costs of mass migration will be immense. About 30% of all desktop PCs are running Windows XP right now. An estimated 10% of the U.S. government's computers run Windows XP, including …


The Jobs Act Trojan Horse: A Gift To Startups With Something Else Inside?, Erik Gordon Jan 2014

The Jobs Act Trojan Horse: A Gift To Startups With Something Else Inside?, Erik Gordon

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Comment will analyze which provisions of the Act are consistent with the purpose that sponsors would have the public believe, that emphasized by the name “JOBS Act,” and distinguish them from those provisions that serve as menacing soldiers hidden under the cover of a name that diverts attention from the Act’s true purpose.


Legally "Strong" Shareholders Of Japan, Gen Goto Jan 2014

Legally "Strong" Shareholders Of Japan, Gen Goto

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Foreign investors often criticize Japanese corporations for not paying enough attention to the interests of their shareholders. It might surprise these critics, then, to learn that shareholders’ legal rights under the Japanese Companies Act are actually quite strong. Indeed, many of the rights that shareholders’ rights advocates often support, including shareholders’ power to alter a corporate charter without board consent, shareholders’ power to control dividend payments, majority voting for board elections, shareholders’ power to replace the board of directors, and shareholder access to a corporate ballot—all of which are strongly debated elsewhere— are already effective in Japan. Moreover, derivative suits …


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, …


Enhancing The Legal And Regulatory Environment For Investment In Social Enterprise, Dilpreet K. Minhas Jan 2014

Enhancing The Legal And Regulatory Environment For Investment In Social Enterprise, Dilpreet K. Minhas

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The objectives of this Note are: 1) to provide readers interested in social enterprise and entrepreneurship an introduction to these endeavors and the growing trend toward using them; 2) to present the challenges stemming from the legal and financial frameworks surrounding social investment activity, which can inhibit the survival and growth of social enterprises; and 3) to propose suggestions for addressing such challenges and limitations in order to better support the survival of social enterprise. Part II and Part III provide a broad perspective of the types of investment in and nurturing of social entrepreneurship in the U.S. Part IV …


From Revolutionary To Palace Guard: The Role And Requirements Of Intermediaries Under Proposed Regulation Crowdfunding, Andrew D. Stephenson, Brian R. Knight, Matthew Bahleda Jan 2014

From Revolutionary To Palace Guard: The Role And Requirements Of Intermediaries Under Proposed Regulation Crowdfunding, Andrew D. Stephenson, Brian R. Knight, Matthew Bahleda

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Intermediaries in securities crowdfunding face significant requirements as a result of the statutory mandates of Title III of the JOBS Act. The SEC, in its proposed rules, provided structure to these requirements. The proposed rules would create strict requirements for intermediaries regarding their relationships with investors and how they undertake crowdfunding transactions under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act. The proposed rules would also create and establish the guidelines for funding portals, a new type of limited purpose securities broker. While some commentators decry the SEC for placing undue burdens and legal liabilities on intermediaries in securities crowdfunding, the SEC …


Toward Greater Guidance: Reforming The Definitions Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Matthew W. Muma Jan 2014

Toward Greater Guidance: Reforming The Definitions Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Matthew W. Muma

Michigan Law Review

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is the cornerstone of the United States’ efforts to combat the involvement of U.S. companies and individuals in corruption abroad. Enforced by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the Act targets companies and individuals that pay bribes to “foreign officials,” a nebulous category of persons that includes everyone from foreign cabinet members to janitors at companies only partially owned by a foreign state. After only sporadic enforcement in the early years of the Act’s existence, the SEC and DOJ now bring many cases annually. This increased …