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Outsourcing Voting To Ai: Can Chatgpt Advise Index Funds On Proxy Voting Decisions?, Chen Wang Dec 2023

Outsourcing Voting To Ai: Can Chatgpt Advise Index Funds On Proxy Voting Decisions?, Chen Wang

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Released in November 2022, Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (“ChatGPT”), has risen rapidly to prominence, and its versatile capabilities have already been shown in a variety of fields. Due to ChatGPT’s advanced features, such as extensive pre-training on diverse data, strong generalization ability, fine-tuning capabilities, and improved reasoning, the use of AI in the legal industry could experience a significant transformation. Since small passive funds with low-cost business models generally lack the financial resources to make informed proxy voting decisions that align with their shareholders’ interests, this Article considers the use of ChatGPT to assist small investment funds, particularly small passive …


Do Institutional Owners Monitor? Evidence From Voting On Connected Transaction Proposals In Hong Kong-Listed Companies, Félix E. Mezzanotte, Simon Fung May 2018

Do Institutional Owners Monitor? Evidence From Voting On Connected Transaction Proposals In Hong Kong-Listed Companies, Félix E. Mezzanotte, Simon Fung

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The conventional view in Hong Kong has been that institutional owners tend to be passive owners and that they do little to monitor the companies’ management. We investigated whether the presence of institutional owners in Hong Kong-listed companies was associated with greater monitoring of management through dissent voting by hand-collecting information for a sample (n= 96) of connected transaction proposals (“CT proposals”) and of their voting outcomes, as announced in the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong during the period from 2012–14. Our study shows that voting approval rates on CT proposals were lower (i.e. greater dissent voting) when institutional owners …


Theories And Solutions On Wolf Pack Activism, Kimberly Goldman May 2018

Theories And Solutions On Wolf Pack Activism, Kimberly Goldman

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Section I will describe the key players involved in wolf pack activism and their conflicting motives, including both the members of wolf packs and those affected by them. Given that not all shareholders have common interests, this will include an analysis of the motives of various types of shareholders and an analysis of how these diverse motives may affect the wealth sustainability of companies. Section II will explain the phenomenon of wolf packs in corporate governance by describing the circumstances that lead to their formation and the various regulations (or lack thereof) pertaining to them. Section III will describe divergent …


Third-Party Institutional Proxy Advisors: Conflicts Of Interest And Roads To Reform, Matthew Fagan Apr 2018

Third-Party Institutional Proxy Advisors: Conflicts Of Interest And Roads To Reform, Matthew Fagan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

With the rise of institutional activist investors in recent decades—including a purported 495 activist campaigns against U.S. corporations in 2016 alone—the role that third-party institutional proxy advisors play in corporate governance has greatly increased. The United States Office of Government Accountability estimates that clients of the top five proxy advisory firms account for about $41.5 trillion in equity throughout the world. For several years, discussions have developed regarding conflicts of interest faced by proxy advisors. For example, Institutional Shareholder Services, the top proxy advisory firm in the world, frequently provides advice to institutional investors on how to vote proxies while …


Lessons From Institutional Shareholder Services: Governing Benefit Corporations' Third-Party Standard, Tammi S. Etheridge Sep 2015

Lessons From Institutional Shareholder Services: Governing Benefit Corporations' Third-Party Standard, Tammi S. Etheridge

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Almost one hundred years ago, Henry Ford, as CEO of the Ford Motor Company, announced a plan to cease payment of special dividends to shareholders. Instead, the company would reinvest its profits to employ more workers and build more factories. Investing in new workers and factories would cut the cost of cars and make them affordable to more people. Ford publicly declared that his “ambition [was] to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting …


On The Role And Regulation Of Proxy Advisors, Paul Rose Dec 2010

On The Role And Regulation Of Proxy Advisors, Paul Rose

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In anticipation of proxy season-the springtime ritual where companies prepare and deliver proxy statements in preparation for annual shareholder meetings-U.S. public companies typically reexamine their corporate governance structures and policies. Many corporate governance structures that were acceptable ten years ago are now considered outmoded or even evidence of managerial entrenchment. For example, consider the classified board of directors. In recent years, many companies have shifted from a classified board of directors to an annually elected board. A company might adopt an annually-elected board structure for a number of reasons. A classified board can serve as an entrenchment device, for instance, …


The Evolving Role Of Institutional Investors In Corporate Governance And Corporate Litigation, Randall S. Thomas Mar 2008

The Evolving Role Of Institutional Investors In Corporate Governance And Corporate Litigation, Randall S. Thomas

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Symposium volume of the Vanderbilt Law Review, sponsored by the Institute for Law and Economic Policy ("ILEP"), focuses on the critical role of institutional investors in the modern American corporation. The agency cost model of the corporation tells us that in a dispersed ownership system, such as the U.S. system, large, motivated shareholders can play an important role in reducing the agency costs of equity by closely monitoring the actions of corporate management.1 Activist investors can use their voting powers, their power to file suit, and their power to sell their interests in the firm, to align the interests …


"Go Pick A Client" - And Other Tales Of Woe Resulting From The Selection Of Class Counsel By Court-Ordered Competitive Bidding, Fred B. Burnside Jan 2003

"Go Pick A Client" - And Other Tales Of Woe Resulting From The Selection Of Class Counsel By Court-Ordered Competitive Bidding, Fred B. Burnside

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Institutional Investors: Agents Of Change, James E. Heard Jan 1997

Institutional Investors: Agents Of Change, James E. Heard

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Why We Bother: A Primer In How Activism Enhances Returns, Jon Lukomnik Jan 1997

Why We Bother: A Primer In How Activism Enhances Returns, Jon Lukomnik

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


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 …