Law Commons^™

Glass Half-Full Or Glass Half-Empty? Thirty Years Of Accountability At The Inspection Panel--The Impact Of Its Work And What The Data Tells Us, Ramanie Kunanayagam, Mark Goldsmith, Ibrahim James Pam, Serge Selwan, Richard Wyness, Ayako Kubodera, Camila Jorge Do Amarel, Rupes Dalai

Perspectives

“A stroke of a genius”, “a bold experiment in transparency and accountability that has worked to the benefit of all concerned”, “a precedent under international law”, and a “citizen-based accountability mechanism” are some of the ways in which close observers have described the World Bank Inspection Panel, which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2023.

Between Disruption And Legitimation Of Development: A Critical Perspective On The Inspection Panel And A Call For More Radical Thinking Within The Accountability Community, Dustin Schäfer

Perspectives

The essay explores the Inspection Panel’s (the Panel) conflicting role of providing accountability for negatively affected people while facing political limitations. The Panel has proven its potential to disrupt harmful development practices. However, by reproducing “dev-speak” it also continuously contributes to legitimizing the same assumptions of “how to do development”, and thus to the continuation of harmful development practices. This ambivalent effect is inherent to the Panel because of its politically inhibited and depoliticized (i.e. technocratic) environment. To overcome this long-lasting and structural condition will require critical examination of the concept of development and the role it plays in …

An Increased Normalization Of Iams Faces Ground Realities: Lack Of Transparency Impedes Access To Iams, Hamid Sharif

Perspectives

The creation of the Inspection Panel at the World Bank has led to the emergence of a norm that international financial institutions (IFIs) must hold themselves accountable to project-affected people through independent accountability mechanisms (IAMs). AIIB as a 21^st century bank reflects this normalization of IAMs. As a new MDB, AIIB’s charter mandates creation of an oversight body that includes the independent accountability mechanism or the Project-affected People’s mechanism (PPM). The PPM is aligned with many features of IFI’s IAMs while incorporating some innovations.

The central question asked by civil society and board members across IFIs is why there …

"Use And Improve" Is My Accountability Mantra, Despite 30 Years Of Eye-Opening Disappointments, Natalie Bridgeman Fields

Perspectives

This essay finds justification for championing the continued existence, functioning and evolution of Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs). An inside assessment of the thirty-year functioning of IAMs reveals that inadequate power and independence are severely hampering IAM efforts to hold actors accountable for harm. Simultaneously, IAMs can’t make progress without the underlying financial institutions reforming their incentive structures to reward harm prevention and remedy. Despite decades of systemic failure to deliver accountability, when exceptions happen, they are worth it and can be spectacular. With an influx of new climate-related funding expected at the financial institutions, exceptions need to become the rule. …

The World Bank, The Inspection Panel & Immunity, Joe Athialy

Perspectives

The establishment of the Inspection Panel marked a turning point for the World Bank, at a time when the notion of accountability in international financial institutions was still nascent. Triggered by people's movements, this bold experiment aimed at transparency faced hurdles as the Bank was immune to legal consequences, and over a while, it weakened the Panel's mandate. The 2019 US Supreme Court decision stripping the Bank of absolute immunity reshapes its accountability landscape. Post-immunity, the Panel gains renewed significance, scrutinizing and recommending actions. Legal repercussions for non-compliance bring a paradigm shift, compelling the Bank to enhance transparency, engage communities, …

Why Corporate Boards Should Include Lgbtq+ People, Jeremy Mcclane, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Corporate boardrooms sit at the heart of most of society’s most consequential decisions but fall far short of the diversity of our society. The current movement toward board diversification aims to remedy the underrepresentation of marginalized groups on corporate boards. More recently, some efforts have included LGBTQ+ people, even though the basis for their inclusion on corporate boards remains largely unstated. This Article examines both the normative and instrumental bases for LGBTQ+ inclusion in board diversity initiatives, articulating unspoken assumptions and linking LGBTQ+ people to the broader inclusion effort. In so doing, it begins to surface the unique issues …

The Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Introduction, Jennifer S. Martin, Colin P. Marks, Wayne Barnes

Faculty Articles

The survey that follows highlights the most important developments of 2022 dealing with domestic and international sales of goods, personal property leases, payments, letters of credit, documents of title, investment securities, and secured transactions. Along with the usual descriptions of interesting judicial decisions in these areas, which are highlighted in the survey, there has also been important legislative progress. The 2022 Amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code ("U.C.C.") (the "2022 Amendments") have been adopted in eight states and introduced in nineteen plus the District of Colombia.

Allocating State Authority Over Charitable Nonprofit Organizations, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

This Essay considers the allocation of state authority to enforce the legal obligations particular to charities and their leaders among state officials, including attorneys general, judges, and legislators, and private parties. It first describes the existing allocation. It then reviews the most common criticisms of this allocation, which primarily focus on two concerns: politicization and lack of sufficient enforcement. Finally, it evaluates the most notable proposals for reallocating this authority, including the reallocation of this authority in part to private parties.

This Essay concludes that reform proposals have two fundamental flaws. First, proposals aimed at countering the political nature of …

Inside Out (Or, One State To Rule Them All): New Challenges To The Internal Affairs Doctrine, Ann Lipton

Publications

The internal affairs doctrine provides that the law of the organizing state will apply to matters pertaining to a business entity's internal governance, regardless of whether the entity has substantive ties to that jurisdiction. The internal affairs doctrine stands apart from other choice of law rules, which usually favor the jurisdiction with the greatest relationship to the dispute and limit parties' ability to select another jurisdiction's law. The doctrine is purportedly justified by business entities' unique need for a single set of rules to apply to governance matters, and by the efficiency gains that flow from allowing investors and managers …

Saving Climate Disclosure, Scott Hirst

Faculty Scholarship

Designing a regulatory response to climate change is one of the defining challenges of our era. In an attempt to address it, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently proposed a historic rule requiring climate-related disclosure by companies, resting squarely on the rationale of "investor demand." The proposed climate disclosure rule has met with an unprecedented response, some of it reflective of investor demand, but also including a broad array of opponents critical of the rule, who cast doubt on the rule's validity. A judicial challenge is all but inevitable.

This Article explains that the best way for the …

How Much Do Investors Care About Social Responsibility?, Scott Hirst, Kobi Kastiel, Tamar Kricheli-Katz

Faculty Scholarship

Perhaps the most important corporate law debate over the last several years concerns whether directors and executives should manage the corporation to maximize value for investors or also take into account the interests of other stakeholders and society. But, do investors themselves wish to maximize returns, or are they willing to forgo returns for social purposes? And more broadly, do market participants, such as investors and consumers, differ from donors in the ways in which they prioritize monetary gains and the promotion of social goals?

This project attempts to answer these questions with evidence from an experiment conducted with 279 …

The Sec's Compensation Clawback Loophole, David I. Walker

Faculty Scholarship

The SEC has recently released final rules implementing the executive incentive compensation recovery or “clawback” provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. These rules are aimed at recovering from executives incentive compensation determined to be excessive in light of a subsequent accounting restatement. Unfortunately, the SEC’s rules create a loophole by excluding purely time-vested stock and stock option grants from the reach of the new clawback regime. This aspect of the rulemaking seems inconsistent with the intent of Congress, and the result likely will be to distort executive pay practices in a perverse fashion, shifting compensation back in the direction of …

Systematic Stewardship: It's Up To The Shareholders – A Response To Profs. Kahan And Rock, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

As the author of an article entitled “Systematic Stewardship,” I read Professors Kahan and Rock’s article “Systematic Stewardship with Tradeoffs” (K&R) with considerable interest. I acknowledge the limits on deep asset manager engagement with sources of systematic risk in light of present institutional arrangements and the politics of the moment. Yet I think the most important move in the K&R analysis — the privileging of a “single firm focus” in corporate law instead of a “portfolio firm focus” — simply doesn’t account for the evolution that has already occurred in law and practice.

Long before the development of index funds, …

Debt Textualism And Creditor-On-Creditor Violence: A Modest Plea To Keep The Faith, Eric L. Talley, Sneha Pandya

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we argue that debt textualism played a key role in laying the groundwork for our present malaise by encouraging contracts to become increasingly bloated, complex, and rigid up to the point of buckling completely. The dense contractual landscape wrought by debt textualism, when freshly populated with a calculating coterie of financial mercenaries, has transformed corporate lending markets into an elaborate and costly contest of Hunger Games-worthy contractual “gotcha” where (a) lenders scour loan agreements for unappreciated loopholes to undercut borrowers; (b) borrowers do the same in an attempt to counteract lenders; and (c) permutated coalitions from …

Contract Production In M&A Markets, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, Matthew Jennejohn, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Contract scholarship has devoted considerable attention to how contract terms are designed to incentivize parties to fulfill their obligations. Less attention has been paid to the production of contracts and the tradeoffs between using boilerplate terms and designing bespoke provisions. In thick markets everyone uses the standard form despite the known drawbacks of boilerplate. But in thinner markets, such as the private deal M&A world, parties trade off costs and benefits of using standard provisions and customizing clauses. This Article reports on a case study of contract production in the M&A markets. We find evidence of an informal information network …

Covid-19 Relief For Opportunity Zone Funds And Investors, Adam Wallwork, Gary Hecimovich

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article describes how temporary changes to the qualified opportunity zone (QOZ) tax incentive, combined with new reliance regulations that clarify the requirements for qualified opportunity zone businesses (QOZBs) to modify their written plans to expend working capital in response to the ongoing coronavirus emergency, will make more individuals and entities eligible for federal tax stimulus by increasing flexibility for the qualified opportunity funds (QOFs) and QOZBs in which they invest to redeploy their capital into qualifying business development projects in a QOZ.

Protecting Corporations From Discrimination Under The Convention On The Elimination Of Racial Discrimination, William Thomas Worster

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This article argues that legal persons derive rights under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and can enforce those rights by individual or inter-state complaint. It uses the case study of media corporations, following from the recent judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the litigation between Qatar and the UAE over the application of CERD to the treatment of the Al Jazeera media corporation. However, the implications of this study apply to all private corporations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The CERD protects against certain forms of racial, ethnic and national origin …

The Original “Market” Understanding Of The Commerce Clause: Insights From Early Federal Government Practice And Precedent, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nontraditional Investors, Jennifer S. Fan

BYU Law Review

In recent years, nontraditional investors have become a major player in the startup ecosystem. Under the regulatory regime of U.S. securities law, those in the public realm are heavily regulated, while those in the private realm are largely left alone. This public-private divide, which is a fundamental organizing principle of securities law, has eroded with the rise of nontraditional investors. While legal scholars have addressed the impact of some of these nontraditional investors individually, their collective impact on deal terms, deal timelines, due diligence, and board configuration has not been discussed in a holistic manner; neither has their impact on …

Corporate Innovation: One Path To More Sustainable Big Business, David Nows

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ethnic Economies, Cultural Resources, And The African American Question, Lan Cao

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Re Weinstein Company Holdings Llc: An Overly Systematic Approach To Executory Contracts Limits Much-Needed Flexibility, Thomas Hauk, Andrew Schwartz

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Penerapan Doktrin Piercing The Corporate Veil Terhadap Negara Pada Holding Badan Usaha Milik Negara, Deny Adi Pratama

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The lack of regulation regarding group company's conception in Indonesia provokes several problems. The policy on establishing holding BUMN in Indonesia only supervised by Government Regulation Number 72 Year 2016 concerning Change of Government Regulation Number 44 Year 2005 regarding Procedure of Participation and Administration Funds upon State-Owned Enterprises and Limited Liability Company. However, the provision which becomes the legal basis underlying BUMN and Limited Liability Company are supervised upon regulation equals to act. Those of which cause a contradiction amongst both provisions of laws and regulation. The rights and obligations along with the country's responsibilities as a public legal …

Pembentukan Holding Company Badan Usaha Milik Negara (Bumn) Di Sektor Infrastruktur Ditinjau Dalam Persaingan Usaha Tidak Sehat, Wiesma Mara Rangga

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

That a large number of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in infrastructure has caused competition, especially when competing against one another in participating in the same tender. This is not in line with the synergy plan between SOEs, which is one of the essential pillars. SOEs belonging to similar value chain groups should work together to accelerate economic growth and synergies at various levels through corporate, transaction, and operational restructuring. Optimizing the formation of infrastructure holding can be done through collaboration and synergy between SOE entities, strengthening and increasing the capacity of each holding member, and integrating infrastructure development. However, the plan …

Masuknya Tenaga Pendidik Asing Di Bidang Teknologi Informasi Dalam Rangka Liberalisasi Pendidikan Tinggi Dalam Menjawab Permasalahan Kebutuhan Atas Sumber Daya Manusia Yang Berkualitas Di Era Industri 4.0, Rodeen Chenggaliex

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Education liberalization has become a hot topic of discussion in Indonesia lately, starting with bringing in foreign higher education leaders to Indonesian universities; in the Industrial 4.0 era, Indonesia still lacks qualified information technology experts to support industry 4.0. Educational sciences in Indonesia are now considered to be still unable to compete with educational sciences abroad. The liberalization of education will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the development of academic science in the development of the Indonesian nation. The problem is this paper focuses on the issue of the low quality of education in the field of information technology …

Perbandingan Sistem Hukum Civil Law Dan Common Law Dalam Penerapan Yurisprudensi Ditinjau Dari Politik Hukum, Praise Juinta W.S. Siregar

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The legal system is related to the concept of law, where the two things have an inseparable relationship with each other. In principle, the legal system regulates the life of a community so that conflicts do not occur, where if the conflict is unavoidable, then the legal system has an important role in resolving the conflict. The legal system in the judiciary has a major influence in the application of the law, especially for judges in examining and deciding a case. The Panel of Judges in deciding a case will definitely pay close attention to the legal system in its …

Kebijakan Countercyclical Sebagai Upaya Kesejahteraan Masyarakat, Made Cinthya Puspita Shara

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Indonesia's high level of economic growth is in line with the development of businesses that increase capital by making credit agreements with financial institutions. However, the state spread of the co-19 pandemic case has been declared a national disaster, impacting the implementation of credit agreements between the debtor and financial institutions. Economic problems make it difficult for people to carry out their obligations. A countercyclical buffer policy is a buffer that is carried out by providing additional capital to replace losses if excessive credit growth occurs, which has the potential to disrupt financial stability. Bank Indonesia Policy PBI No.17/22/PBI/2015, also …

Pengelolaan Royalti Dari Pencipta Lagu Yang Tidak Terdaftar Di Lembaga Manajemen Kolektif Oleh Lembaga Manajemen Kolektif Nasional, Mohamad Thaufiq Rachman

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Royalty is a reward received by the author or owner of the related right concerning the utilization of their Economic Rights following Article 1 point 21 of Law No. 28, 2014 regarding Copyright ("UUHC 2014"). Royalty could also be interpreted as a form of appreciation for the Author's Works, such as song and/or music. Encouraging the spirit of industry players, including songwriters, is essential for continuous growth. As mentioned in the general explanation section of UUHC 2014, Copyright is the most important basis of the national creative economy. With the fulfillment of the protection and development of this creative economy, …

Pengakhiran Kontrak Sebelum Terjadi Wanprestasi Oleh Pihak Yang Mengantisipasi Kegagalan Pelaksanaan Kewajiban, M. Hillman Mehaga S

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Termination of an agreement/contract in a situation where a party has known that he/she/it will not be able to perform its obligation(s) based on the agreement/contract to avoid the occurrence of the larger losses if the agreement/contract is still ongoing. Under Indonesian civil law, a defaulting party or a party who has anticipated that he/she/it will fail to meet obligation(s) does not have the right to file a claim to terminate an agreement/contract. This means that, this party can only be passive until the default actually happens and wait until the non-defaulting party to file the claim with the claim …

Peranan Perusahaan Penjaminan Dalam Mengatasi Permasalahan Umkm Mengakses Kredit Di Sektor Perbankan (Setelah Berlakunya Undang-Undang Nomor 1 Tahun 2016 Tentang Penjaminan), Luh Putu Prema Shanti Putri Saraswati

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME’s) have an important role in the development of the Indonesian economy. So far, MSME’s are still faced with various kinds of obstacles, one of which is that MSMEs still face problems related to limited access to funding to financial institutions. Limited access to funding to financial institutions is partly due to the limited assets owned by MSME’s to be used as collateral for bank loans. Guarantee is the activity of providing guarantees by the Guarantor for the fulfillment of Guaranteed financial obligations to the Recipient of the Guarantee. Guarantee Company is a legal entity …