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Full-Text Articles in Law
Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin
Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin
Faculty Scholarship
For many years, law and economics scholars, as well as politicians and regulators, have debated whether corporate punishment chills beneficial corporate activity or, in the alternative, lets corporate criminals off too easily. A crucial and yet understudied aspect of this debate is empirical evidence. Unlike most other types of crime, the government does not measure corporate crime rates; therefore, the government and researchers alike cannot easily determine whether disputed policies are effectively deterring future incidents of corporate misconduct. In this Article, we take important first steps in addressing these questions. Specifically, we use three novel sources as proxies for corporate …
Validation Capital, Alon Brav, Dorothy S. Lund, Edward B. Rock
Validation Capital, Alon Brav, Dorothy S. Lund, Edward B. Rock
Faculty Scholarship
Although it is well understood that activist shareholders challenge management, they can also serve as a shield. This Article describes “validation capital,” which occurs when a bloc holder’s — and generally an activist hedge fund’s — presence protects management from shareholder interference and allows management’s pre-existing strategy to proceed uninterrupted. When a sophisticated bloc holder with a large investment and the ability to threaten management’s control chooses to vouch for management’s strategy after vetting it, this support can send a credible signal to the market that protects management from disruption. By protecting a value-creating management strategy that might otherwise be …
Can Lawyers Wear Blinders? Gatekeepers And Third-Party Opinions, John C. Coffee Jr.
Can Lawyers Wear Blinders? Gatekeepers And Third-Party Opinions, John C. Coffee Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
The question in the title may seem to answer itself. But it does not; indeed, the question has been framed to explain my difficulty with Professor Schwarcz's position on third-party opinions. Frankly, Steven Schwarcz has taken a bold, tough position. Addressing what he sees as issues of "first impression," he asks "what it means for lawyers to issue legal opinions that create negative externalities," and "[i]f lawyers issuing legal opinions owe a duty to the public as well as to the opinion recipient." These are large, possibly even imponderable questions, but he answers them crisply and succinctly in the manner …