Law Commons^™

Triumph Or Tragedy? The Curious Path Of Corporate Disclosure Reform In The U.K., Cynthia A. Williams, John M. Conley

Cynthia A. Williams

No abstract provided.

Apologies In The Marketplace, Kish Vinayagamoorthy

Kish Parella

In order to better appreciate the insufficiency of money in repairing relationships, Part I describes the benefits that an apology brings to the injured party, transgressor, and the broader community in which the parties belong. Part II explains the increasing significance of relationships to certain categories of commercial transactions and provides examples of the types of relational damage that a contractual breach can cause to these commercial relationships. Part III explains how the benefits previously described in Part I are applicable to repairing the types of commercial relational harm described in Part II. Given that relationships matter especially in transnational …

Sustainable Development Through Corporate Social Responsibility, Sudhir Tarote, Sukdeo Ingale

Sukdeo Ingale

No abstract provided.

Interfaces Between Csr, Corporate Law And The Problem Of Social Costs, Benedict Sheehy

Benedict Sheehy

Abstract: CSR is an increasingly seen as the preferred approach to addressing the social impacts of industrial production. These social impacts, however, come in the first instance from production and not the corporation. The legal corporation facilitates social costs secondarily. Much of the thinking about CSR fails to adequately take account of the systemic nature of social costs, the legal nature of the corporation and social costs and the so the systemic failure of law to deal with them. This article addresses the interface between the three concepts and related issues of CSR, social costs and corporate law.

The Riddle Of Shareholder Rights And Corporate Social Responsibility, Dan Morrissey

Dan Morrissey

Morrissey—Abstract

The Riddle of Shareholder Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility

Shareholders own the entrepreneurial interests in corporations. As such, the law has historically held that they must be run primarily to generate profit for those investors. Progressives and some enlightened business leaders however have long claimed that this “shareholder primacy” rule is inadequate and urged that the larger needs of the community must also be a concern of business decision-makers. This corporate social responsibility movement (CSR) has gained legal traction during the last several decades with legislative initiatives like constituency statutes and the benefit corporation. In recent years reformers have …

The Riddle Of Shareholder Rights And Corporate Social Responsibility, Dan Morrissey

Dan Morrissey

Morrissey—Abstract

The Riddle of Shareholder Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility

Shareholders own the entrepreneurial interests in corporations. As such, the law has historically held that they must be run primarily to generate profit for those investors. Progressives and some enlightened business leaders however have long claimed that this “shareholder primacy” rule is inadequate and urged that the larger needs of the community must also be a concern of business decision-makers. This corporate social responsibility movement (CSR) has gained legal traction during the last several decades with legislative initiatives like constituency statutes and the benefit corporation. In recent years reformers have …

Corporate Social Responsibility In A Remedy-Seeking Society: A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Written for the Chapman Law Review Symposium on “What Can Law & Economics Teach Us About the Corporate Social Responsibility Debate?,” this Article applies the lessons of public choice theory to examine corporate social responsibility. The Article adopts a broad definition of corporate social responsibility activism to include both (1) those efforts that seek to convince corporations to voluntarily take into account corporate social responsibility in their own decision-making, and (2) the efforts to alter the legal landscape and expand legal obligations of corporations beyond traditional notions of harm and duty so as to force corporations to invest in interests …

The Private Sector’S Pivotal Role In Combating Human Trafficking, Jonathan Todres

Jonathan Todres

Human trafficking is big business, with industry estimates running in the billions of dollars annually. Much of that profit accrues to traffickers, illegal profiteers, and organized crime groups. However, the private sector-including legitimate businesses and industries-also reaps economic benefits, directly and indirectly, from the trafficking and related exploitation of persons. Despite these economic realities, the dominant approach to combating human trafficking has been to rely almost exclusively on governments and social services organizations to do the job. Little has been asked of the private sector. Two important bills-one adopted by the State of California and the otherintroduced in the U.S. …

Environments, Externalities And Ethics: Compulsory Multinational And Transnational Corporate Bonding To Promote Accountability For Externalization Of Environmental Harm, Matthew A. Susson

Matthew A Susson

Developing nations often look to their bounty of natural resources or willing labor as a means of attracting international investors. While national and local governments frequently perceive the arrival of a multinational corporate presence as a boon to their economy, the potential for government instability, ineffectiveness or corruption may facilitate environmentally exploitive corporate practices. Furthermore, residents of the subject nation may be left without proper legal recourse. Legislators have made various efforts in both the United States and abroad to propound Corporate Codes of Conduct to address such concerns, but despite laudable intentions, features of the increasingly global economy “accentuate …

Understanding Csr: An Empirical Study Of Private Self-Regulation, Benedict Sheehy

Benedict Sheehy

Abstract: The article is a study of an important burgeoning form of regulation—private self-regulation—in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Rather than taking a purely theoretical approach or a social scientific study relying publicly reported data, the article addresses the issue by way of interview based case studies. As a study in regulation it clarifies the difference between various types of self-regulation, trade associations’ codes as private self-regulation and government sponsored self-regulation. This distinction hampers efforts to understand the important aspects of motivation and compliance. This study provides empirical examination of compliance in private self-regulation. Given the impact and …

Devilry, Complicity, And Greed: Transitional Justice And Odious Debt, David C. Gray

David C. Gray

The doctrine of odious debts came into its full in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century to deal with the financial injustices of colonialism and its stalking horse, despotism. The basic rule, as articulated by Alexander Sack in 1927, is that debts incurred by an illegitimate regime that neither benefit nor have the consent of the people of a territory are personal to the regime and are subject to unilateral recision by a successor government. While the traditional doctrine focused on the nature and circumstances of individual debts, it has been expanded in recent years, moving the focus from the …

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Is There A Need For A Safe Harbor For Aspirational Codes Of Conduct?, Elizabeth F. Brown

Elizabeth F Brown

Over the years, Congress and some state legislatures have enacted laws to encourage corporations to engage in self-policing by providing them with incentives to adopt codes of conduct and compliance programs. In the case of the Federal Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, Congress offered corporations lower penalties if they were found in violation of a federal law but had adopted codes of conduct and compliance programs to try to comply with the law. In the case of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Congress require public corporations to disclose if they had a code of ethic and if not, why not. Congress assumed that the …

Reinventing Government: The Promise Of Comparative Institutional Choice And Government Created Corporations, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

This Article focuses on a subset of private/public partnerships - those that involve relationships between the public sector and charitable organizations, specifically "government created charitable organizations" (GCCOs). For example, the first President Bush, known as the "Education President," championed the creation of the New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC) as the cornerstone of his education policy. Designed as an independent charitable organization, the NASDC's proposed budget relied on private corporate contributions. In this way, the federal government could assert that it would fund its new educational program without increasing the federal bureaucracy, raising taxes, or cutting other budget items. To …