Law Commons^™

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cross-Border Bank Branching Under The Nafta: Public Choice And The Law Of Corporate Groups, Eric J. Gouvin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines a question left unresolved after the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): whether the banks of the member countries should be permitted to engage in the business of banking in the other member countries simply by branching across national borders. Under present law, the United States permits branching subject to extensive restrictions, while Canada and Mexico permit access to their banking markets only by acquisition or establishment of institutions chartered in their countries. While the NAFTA does not provide for unfettered branching across national borders, article 1403(3) of the NAFTA left the issue of …

The Three-Legged Stool Of Corporate Governance Reform, Jayne W. Barnard

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

State Comparative Chart Llc And Llp Statutes, James J. Wheaton

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Square Pegs In Round Holes: Llcs Under Other Statutes, James J. Wheaton

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

A Team Production Theory Of Corporate Law, Margaret M. Blair, Lynn A. Stout

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Contemporary corporate scholarship generally assumes that the central economic problem addressed by corporation law is getting managers and directors to act as loyal agents for shareholders. We take issue with this approach and argue that the unique legal rules governing publicly-held corporations are instead designed primarily to address a different problem - the "team production" problem - that arises when a number of individuals must invest firm-specific resources to produce a nonseparable output. In such situations team members may find it difficult or impossible to draft explicit contracts distributing the output of their joint efforts, and, as an alternative, might …

Team Production In Business Organizations: An Introduction, Margaret M. Blair, Lynn A. Stout

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For the past two decades, legal and economic scholarship has tended to assume that the central economic problem addressed by corporation law is getting managers and directors to act as faithful agents for shareholders. There are other important economic problems faced by business firms, however. This article introduces a Symposium that explores one of those alternate economic problems: the problem of "team production". Team production problems can arise whenever three conditions are met: (1) economic production requires the combined inputs of two or more individuals; (2) at least some of these inputs are "team-specific," meaning they have a significantly higher …

Poison And Dead Hand Pills, Markets For Corporate Control, And Implications For An Emerging Market Like China, Shueiqing Zhou

LLM Theses and Essays

In the past twenty years, the Chinese government has been adopting open door and economic reform policies. Because of historical, economic, legal, and cultural traditions, a modern corporation system is far from being established in China. There are lots of things that need to do to establish a perfect corporate system. This thesis reviews diverse interpretations of the function of poison pills in light of recent judicial decisions and underlying empirical evidence. It also reviews recent judicial decisions regarding the new version of poison and dead hand pill. The author discusses the recent trend of by-law restrictions in an attempt …

Why Start-Ups?, Joseph Bankman, Ronald J. Gilson

Faculty Scholarship

The prototypical start-up involves an employee leaving her job with an idea and selling a portion of that idea to a venture capitalist. In many respects, however, the idea should be worth more to the former employer. The former employer can be expected to have better information concerning the employee-entrepreneur and the technology, have opportunities to capture economies of scale and scope not available to a venture capital-backed start-up, and will receive more favorable tax treatment than the start-up should the innovation fail. In connection with an auction of the idea, the former employer should have both a more accurate …

Required Disclosure And Corporate Governance, Merritt B. Fox

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most distinctive features of U.S. business law is the stringent requirements of ongoing disclosure imposed on issuers of publicly traded securities. This scheme usually has been justified as necessary to protect investors from making poor trading decisions as a result of being uninformed. Little scholarly attention, however, has been paid to the corporate governance effects of such required disclosure. In analyzing these effects, this article concludes that required disclosure can improve corporate governance in important ways. Indeed, improving corporate governance, not investor protection, provides the most persuasive justification for imposing on issuers the obligation to provide ongoing …

Pathways To Corporate Convergence? Two Steps On The Road To Shareholder Capitalism In Germany, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most interesting current debates in corporate law is whether worldwide corporate governance will ultimately converge on a single model in light of the increasing globalization of capital markets, and if so, whether it will be an Anglo-American model whose features are shaped by the shareholder primacy norm. Convergence skeptics have focused on the embeddedness of governance systems in national political structures that tend to protect both entrenched insider interests and non-shareholder constituencies against the incursions of Anglo-American governance agendas. Convergence optimists have focused on the evolutionary pressures of competitive international capital markets and on the tendency of …

A Government For Our Time? Business Improvement Districts And Urban Governance, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

The emergence and rapid spread of business improvement districts ("BIDs") is one of the most important recent developments in American cities. BIDs have been controversial, with both supporters and proponents viewing the districts as part of a trend toward the privatization of the public sector. By examining the legal and political structures that determine BID formation, functions, finances and governance, this Article determines that BIDs are not private entities but are, instead, a distinctive hybrid of public and private elements. Moreover, although the particular fusion of public and private institutions, values and concerns embodied in the BID is unique, Professor …

From Special Privilege To General Utility: A Continuation Of Willard Hurst's Study Of Corporations, Susan Pace Hamill

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

On The Threshold Of The Adoption Of Global Antibribery Legislation, Barbara C. George, Kathleen A. Lacey, Jutta Birmele

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article will (1) briefly discuss domestic U.S. anti-corruption efforts through a review of the substantive content of the 1977 FCPA and its 1988 amendments; (2) evaluate indicators of changes in domestic attitudes and policies toward business corruption as evidenced by the breadth and scope of recent increased enforcement activities of DOJ and the SEC; (3) analyze the factors causing recent changes in international attitudes and policies toward business corruption; and (4) examine the resulting international efforts to combat business corruption by governmental and non-governmental organizations, financial standard setting organizations, and financial institutions.

The Limited Fiduciary Duties Owed By Corporate Managers To Preferred Shareholders: A Need For Change, Noelle M. Holladay

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Privatization Of Business And Commercial Dispute Resolution: A Misguided Policy Decision, Chris A. Carr, Michael R. Jencks

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

For-Profit Corporations That Perform Public Functions: Politics, Profit, And Poverty, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

In this Article, Professor Wade argues that the corporate law shareholder-primacy paradigm fails to adequately account for individuals who depend upon for-profit corporations for the educational, medical, correctional, and social services traditionally provided by government. These for-profit corporations, termed "Public Function Companies" by Professor Wade, have two distinct constituencies: shareholders who expect wealth maximization to guide corporate action and "Corporate Dependents" who rely upon the essential services administered by these corporations. Because corporate law generally requires officers and directors to act only in the interest of shareholders, Corporate Dependents may be left with inadequate services and no mechanism to influence …

Shareholder Derivative Litigation And Corporate Governance, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

In approving settlements of derivative actions that include fees for plaintiff's attorney, courts typically announce that attorney's fees are approved if a substantial benefit is obtained. In fact, courts, particularly Delaware courts, approve settlements in shareholder derivative actions that included substantial fees for plaintiff's attorney, despite the absence of a corresponding benefit to the corporation. Frequently, the "benefit" obtained is a reform in corporate governance, which is of dubious value to the corporation. To deter frivolous litigation, courts should resist the temptation to approve these settlements just to dispose of the litigation. The paper concludes that fees should not be …

Does Venture Capital Require An Active Stock Market?, Ronald J. Gilson, Bernard S. Black

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has both an active venture capital industry and well-developed stock markets. Japan and Germany have neither. We argue here that this is no accident – that venture capital can flourish especially – and perhaps only – if the venture capitalist can exit from a successful portfolio company through an initial public offering (IPO), which requires an active stock market. Understanding the link between the stock market and the venture capital market requires understanding the contractual arrangements between entrepreneurs and venture capital providers especially the importance of exit by venture capitalists and the opportunity, present only if IPO …

Privatization And Corporate Governance: The Lessons From Securities Market Failure, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Should privatization be "fast" or "slow"? Should policymakers adopt a "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" approach that accepts the inevitability of some overreaching by controlling shareholders, but justifies this cost as necessary to realize and expedite the efficiency gains incident to privatization? Or should privatization proceed more cautiously because of the risks of market failure and political corruption that may result when control seekers are tempted to bribe and seduce the judicial and regulatory systems to achieve the private benefit of control? These tempting private benefits arise, of course, precisely to the extent that privatization preceded the creation of …

The Future As History: The Prospects For Global Convergence In Corporate Governance And Its Implications, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

What forces explain corporate structure and shareholder behavior? For decades this question has gone unasked, as both corporate law scholars and practitioners tacitly accepted the answer given in 1932 by Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means that the separation of ownership and control stemming from ownership fragmentation explained and assured shareholder passivity. Over this decade, however, corporate law scholars have recognized that this standard answer begs an essential prior question: if ownership fragmentation explains shareholder passivity, what explains ownership fragmentation? Although the Berle and Means model assumed that large-scale enterprises could raise sufficient capital to conduct their operations only by attracting …

An Economic Analysis Of The Guaranty Contract, Avery W. Katz

Faculty Scholarship

Guaranty arrangements, in which one person stands as surety for a second person's obligation to a third, are ubiquitous in commercial transactions and in commercial law. In recent years, however, scholarly attention to the topic has been scant; and no one has systematically analyzed this body of law and practice from an economic policy perspective. Accordingly, this Article attempts to outline the basic economic logic underlying the guaranty relationship, and applies the results to a variety of specific issues in government policy and private planning. It poses and answers three main questions: First, why would a creditor prefer to make …

Taking The "I" Out Of "Team": Intra-Firm Monitoring And The Content Of Fiduciary Duties, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Depending on whom one asks, the last decades' proliferation of statutory business structures is a cause for either celebration or concern. Some laud this recent trend, arguing that a highly permutated menu of tax treatments, liability limitations, and governance hierarchies facilitates the alignment of legal status with organizational need. Others view statutory variety more skeptically, warning that it may simply portend greater cost externalization, strategic behavior, and distributional inequity. But one set of legal doctrines has persisted throughout: the concept of fiduciary duty. Indeed, fiduciary obligations remain fundamental to the legal governance structure of virtually every statutory business entity.

That …

Liberty And Antitrust In The Formative Era, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Legal Infrastructure Of High Technology Industrial Districts: Silicon Valley, Route 128, And Covenants Not To Compete, Ronald J. Gilson

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, scholars and policymakers have rediscovered the concept of industrial districts – spatial concentrations of firms in the same industry or related industries. In this Article, Professor Gilson examines te relationship between high-technology industrial districts and legal infrastructure by comparing the legal regimes of California's Silicon Valley and Massachusetts's Route 128. He contends that legal rides governing employee mobility influence the dynamics of high technology industrial districts by either encouraging rapid employee movement between employers and to startups, as in Silicon Valley, or discouraging such movement, as in Route 128. Because California does not enforce post-employment covenants not …

The Shareholder Primacy Norm, D. Gordon Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Corporate directors have a fiduciary duty to make decisions in the best interests of the shareholders. This aspect of fiduciary duty is often called the shareholder primacy norm. Legal scholars generally assume that the shareholder primacy norm is a major factor considered by boards of directors of publicly traded corporations in making ordinary business decisions and that changing the shareholder primacy norm would have an effect on the substance of those decisions. This Article challenges this view and argues that the shareholder primacy norm was never equipped to mediate conflicts between shareholders and nonshareholder constituencies of a corporation. The origins …

Impact Of Sales And Use Taxes On Corporate Transactions, Peter L. Faber

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Pass-Through Entity Update, Richard B. Robinson

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

S Corporations, Bryan P. Collins

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

From Hoops To Hard Drives: An Accession Law Approach To The Inevitable Misappropriation Of Trade Secrets , Jay L. Koh

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.