Law Commons^™

Of Fine Lines, Blunt Instruments And Half-Truths: Business Acquisition Agreements And The Right To Lie, Jeffrey M. Lipshaw

ExpressO

In this article, I expand upon a happy coincidence (for scholars) in reconciling the overlap between contract and fraud. Both the recent book by Ian Ayres and Gregory Klass and the Delaware Court of Chancery in Abry Partners Acquisition V, L.P. v. F& W Acquisition, LLC addressed the issue of promissory fraud – the making of a contract as to which the promisor had no intention of performing. Each treatment, however, in focusing on fraudulent affirmative representations, falls short of (a) recognizing the fundamental aspect of deceptive promising in a complex deal, namely the half-truth, (b) articulating an appropriate doctrinal …

Clicking Away The Competition: The Legal Ramifications Of Click Fraud For Companies That Offer Pay Per Click Advertising Services, Daniel L. Hadjinian

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Two businesses that advertise online, Lane's Gifts and Collectibles and Advanced Internet Technologies, recently filed lawsuits against Google, and other intermediaries that offer sponsored advertising services. The companies allege that these intermediaries failed to adequately protect them against "click fraud." Click fraud refers to the practice whereby competitors and other persons may click to view an online ad with no intention of buying, learning about the advertiser's services, or engaging in any other action that the ad aims to achieve. Plaintiffs allege that the intermediaries breached their contractual duties by charging the companies whose ads they hosted for fraudulent clicks, …

The Disgorgement Interest In Contract Law, Melvin A. Eisenberg

Michigan Law Review

Restatement Second of Contracts provided that contract law serves to protect one or more of three interests: the expectation interest, the reliance interest, and the restitution interest. There is, however a fourth interest that contract law should and does protect: the disgorgement interest, which is the promisee's interest in requiring the promisor to disgorge a gain that was made possible by the promisor's breach, but did not consist of a benefit conferred on the promisor by the promisee. It is not clear why Restatement Second excluded the disgorgement interest. Perhaps the drafters believed that this position was compelled by positive …

Do Juries Add Value?: Evidence From An Empirical Study Of Jury Trial Waiver Clauses In Large Corporate Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We study jury trial waivers in a data set of 2,816 contracts contained as exhibits in Form 8-K filings by reporting corporations during 2002. Because these contracts are associated with events deemed material to the financial condition of SEC-reporting firms, they likely are carefully negotiated by sophisticated, well-informed parties and thus provide presumptive evidence about the value associated with the availability of jury trials. Only a small minority of contracts, about 20 percent, waived jury trials. An additional nine percent of contracts had arbitration clauses that effectively preclude jury trials though the reason for arbitration clauses need not specifically relate …

Finding Common Ground In The World Of Electronic Contracts: The Consistency Of Legal Reasoning In Clickwrap Cases, Robert L. Dickens

ExpressO

Electronic contractual arrangements have raised complex legal issues unprecedented in the law. Technology s impact on traditional contract law doctrines is readily apparent in the dilemmas generated by recent developments in computer software, hardware, and Internet transactions. In such transactions, sellers have increasingly begun utilizing “clickwrap” agreements, whereby standard terms and conditions are displayed on the computer screen when the user attempts to access the seller’s services. Not surprisingly, the enforceability of clickwrap terms, which are often not known to the user until after payment, has become a subject of much debate in the courts. Because many of the clickwrap …

Contract Law Is Not Enough: The Many Legal Institutions That Support Contractual Commitments, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

One of the fundamental contributions of transaction cost theory and institutional economics has been to focus attention on opening the "black box" of contract enforcement, drawing attention to the institutions required to achieve effective and low-cost contract enforcement. The idea that the effectiveness of contract law is critical to the growth of economic activity is widespread in the literature on development and transition economies. Recent studies attempting to document toe relative strength of contract enforcement in different settings (La Porta, et al., 19982; Djankov, et al., 2003), however, have focused on relatively abstract notions of "courts" and "legal systems" and …

Ex Ante Choices Of Law And Forum: An Empirical Analysis Of Corporate Merger Agreements, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Legal scholars have focused much attention on the incorporation puzzle—why business corporations so heavily favor Delaware as the site of incorporation. This paper suggests that the focus on the incorporation decision overlooks a broader but intimately related set of questions. The choice of Delaware as a situs of incorporation is, effectively, a choice of law decision. A company electing to charter in Delaware selects Delaware law (and authorizes Delaware courts to adjudicate legal disputes) regarding the allocation of governance authority within the firm. In this sense, the incorporation decision is fundamentally similar to any setting in which a company selects …

Accrual Of Causes Of Action In Virginia, James W. Ellerman

University of Richmond Law Review

This article will examine major issues in Virginia law affecting the accrual of causes of action, specifically in the contexts of contract, tort, and property. In addition to surveying the basic accrual requirements for each area of law, this article will look more deeply into several specific issues that guide an accrual analysis particularly the distinction between causes and rights of action, as well as the continuous treatment, discovery, and economic loss rules.

Real Estate Law, Paul H. Davenport, Lindsey H. Dobbs

University of Richmond Law Review

This article surveys significant cases concerning real property law decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia between the spring of 2004 and the spring of 2006. This article also details significant legislative changes flowing from the 2005 and 2006 Virginia General Assembly sessions.

Ley Federal Del Procedimiento Contencioso Administrativo., Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Ponencia sobre la Ley Federal del Procedimiento Contencioso Administrativo, impartida por Bruno L. Costantini García.

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Airline Liability For Loss, Damage Or Delay Of Passenger Baggage, M. R. Franks

ExpressO

The article discusses remedies and methods of enforcing airline liability for loss, damage or delay of passenger baggage. The article includes a discussion of the law as it relates both to domestic flights and to international flights where passenger luggage is lost, damaged or delayed. The article includes a discussion of the Warsaw Convention as it relates to international flights and of the Federal Aviation Regulations applicable in the case of domestic flights.

Price Discrimination With Contract Terms: The Lost Volume Problem, Barry E. Adler, Alan Schwartz

ExpressO

In a common commercial pattern, the seller of a standard product contracts with one buyer and then sells to another at the contract price after the initial buyer breaches. Sellers argue, and courts largely agree, that the seller could have served the contract buyer as well as the later buyer; hence, the seller is entitled to retain a down payment to the extent of, or sue to recover, the profit – price less cost – that it would have realized on the initial sale had that sale been completed. Some courts and many scholars disagree, arguing that resale of the …

The Flight From Arbitration: An Empirical Study Of Ex Ante Arbitration Clauses In Publicly-Held Companies’ Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey Miller

ExpressO

We study a data set of 2,858 contracts contained as exhibits in Form 8-K filings by reporting corporations over a six month period in 2002 for twelve types of contracts and a seven month period in 2002 for merger contracts. Because 8-K filings are required only for material events, these contracts likely are carefully negotiated by sophisticated parties who are well-informed about the contract terms. These contracts, therefore, provide evidence of efficient ex ante solutions to contracting problems. The vast majority of contracts did not require arbitration. Only about 11 percent of the contracts included binding arbitration clauses. The rate …

Rent Concessions And Illegal Contract Penalties In Texas, James P. George

ExpressO

This article discusses penalty damages in residential leases in Texas. The sales pitch is a rent concession which is later reimposed if the buyer breaches. In contracts where the reimposed penalty reimburses the seller well beyond the consideration anticipated in the normal performance of the agreement, the reimposed discount is an illegal penalty. These contracts are pervasive but for the most part go unchalllenged.

Performance Rights For Software, Mark Perry, Stephen M. Watt

Law Publications

As we use software in increasingly varied contexts, the concept of a software license has become progressively more complex. Software is embedded in devices that do not obviously resemble computers. Web services make software on one computer available to anyone with internet access. An individual may use several computers over the course of the day so the concept of a node locked or individual license is no longer clear. How should time based and single use and consumptive licenses be governed and interact? This paper examines how these and other issues in software licensing can be seen as instances of …

O Mercado De Capitais E O Desenvolvimento Econômico E Social, Luiz Rafael De Vargas Maluf

Luiz Rafael de Vargas Maluf

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar ao leitor a importância dada ao mercado de capitais para o desenvolvimento econômico, assim como o bem estar social da nação que pode ser conseguido através de investimentos nesta área. Ao longo das próximas páginas será demonstrado brevemente a repercussão histórica do mercado de capitais para a economia brasileira nas últimas décadas, sendo posteriormente vista a sua importante relação para o desenvolvimento econômico-social do país. Por último serão trazidos alguns questionamentos e sugestões de possíveis iniciativas a serem adotadas para o seu crescimento em geral, desmistificando muitos conceitos criados ao longo dos últimos anos, …

Theory And Anti-Theory In The Work Of Allan Farnsworth, Wayne R. Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

When Allan Farnsworth passed away on January 31, 2005, the world lost a titan in the field of contracts. Farnsowrth has been described as “the great contemporary American scholar, and one of a handful of great world scholars, on the law of agreement...[He] was...perhaps The Authority on the law of contracts and much more.” Similarly, others have called him “the premiere figure in American Contracts law scholarship since the passing of Corbin and Dawson. The treatise and his half of the Second Restatement would be quite a contribution if there was nothing else.” Farnsworth’s casebook is perennially the most widely-adopted …

The Reemergence Of Restitution: Theory And Practice In The Restatement (Third) Of Restitution, Chaim Saiman

Working Paper Series

The ALI’s Restatement (Third) of Restitution provides one of the most interesting expressions of contemporary legal conceptualism. This paper explores the theory and practice of post-realist conceptualism through a review and critique of the Restatement. At the theoretical level, the paper develops a typology of different forms of conceptualism, and shows that the Restatement has more in common with the high formalism of the nineteenth century than with contemporary modes of private law discourse. At the level of substantive doctrine, the paper explains why labels in fact make a difference, and assesses which recoveries are more (and less) likely under …

Got Wheels?: Article 2a, Standardized Rental Car Terms, And Unilateral Private Ordering, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Works

This Article examines the modern system of unilateral private ordering facilitated by form contracts in the context of standard form contracts for renting a car. Modern law accepts the presumption of a free market and free bargain in the setting of form contracting despite the lack of bargaining power on the consumer side of the deal. The article assesses the importance of defaults and presumptions in contract law, and presents the results of an empirical review of standard agreement forms of ten leading rental car companies, noting examples of significant alterations to common law defaults. The article also explores the …

Rent Concessions, Reimposable Discounts, And The Return Of Medieval Contract Penalties, James P. George

ExpressO

This article discusses penalty damages in consumer contracts. It focuses on rent concessions in apartment leases, and includes lesser discussions of deferred payments and interest in the purchase of cars, furniture and appliances. The sales pitch is a deferral or discount which is later reimposed if the buyer breaches, with some contracts keying on small breaches such as late payment. In contracts where the reimposed penalty reimburses the seller well beyond the consideration anticipated in the normal performance of the agreement, the reimposed discount is an illegal penalty. These contracts are pervasive but for the most part go unchalllenged.

Legal Consciousness And Contractual Obligations, Kojo Yelpaala

ExpressO

The Article on “Legal Consciousness and Contractual Obligations” will explore and offer an explanation of the origins of the moral foundations for contractual obligations beyond conventional analysis. Building on themes and threads across many disciplines and theories, it seeks to identify and locate certain unities and common elements that explain human consciousness in exchange relations across cultures. The term contract is used in its non-technical and most inclusive sense to cover agreements, promises, undertakings and other forms of consensus whether or not supported by consideration. Viewed within this broad conceptual framework, where do human beings get the idea that they …

The Death Of The Doha Round. What Next For Services Trade?, Rafael Leal-Arcas

ExpressO

With the indefinite suspension of the WTO multilateral trade negotiations in July 2006 by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, the world trading system must now find ways and means to unblock what is perceived as a danger to the world order. This article analyzes the legal and policy implications of the currently fatal Doha Round for the two main developed WTO Members, i.e., the U.S. and the EC, and the most relevant developing countries of the WTO. The specific focus of attention will be mainly on services trade. Thoughts on alternative ways to move forward in the multilateral trading system are …

Corporations And The Lateral Obligations Of The Social Contract, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

Social contract theorists suggest that society at some level is based on the idea that human people surrender freedom for the privilege of participating in society. That participation implicitly requires more than mere minimal compliance with law. Each human person’s contribution to society above the legal baseline, permits humans to create a society that is at least tolerable. Corporations as non-human act without regard for these supra-legal obligations which results in society suffering injustice. Corporate participation in society has become increasingly unjust and has done so to the extent that we may speak of living in a post-ethical world.

Re-Thinking Securities Regulation: A Comparative Study Of Asx, Nyse, And Sgx , Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

This article approaches the issue of securities regulation starting with an examination of the nature and role of markets and financial markets. It next outlines the various arguments for and against regulation, and then looks at approaches taken by markets and their regulators. The approaches are government regulation, self-regulation and co-regulation, and the structural changes via demutualization and corporate governance. With this background, it turns to examine how these approaches have played out in the markets themselves. The article surveys the regulatory aspects of the ASX, NYSE and the SGX, and reviews the regulatory and financial performance of the markets. …

China-Australia Free Trade Agreement New Icing On An Old Cake-An Opportunity For Fair Trade?, Benedict Sheehy, Jackson N. Maogoto

ExpressO

The on-going challenge in economic development and globalization, particularly for developing countries, is the issue of development and equality in society. The issue becomes particularly problematic when confronted in matters of international trade. Often misnamed anti-globalization activists and pro-globalization activists fail to take note of the underlying assumptions that lead them to conflict—namely, the actual costs and benefits to society that result from their particular positions. In essence, both activists are searching for ways to improve the lives of people in the domestic context and to minimize the damage to their society and environment. China’s impressive economic record is threatened …

Persona Jurídica Como Tercero Civilmente Responsable, Una Infeliz O Feliz Vinculación Entre El Derecho Civil Y El Derecho Penal, Rómulo Morales

Rómulo Morales Hervias

La tesis de este estudio es la aplicabilidad de la responsabilidad civil a las personas jurídicas cuando ellas ocasionan daños a terceros mediante el ejercicio o con ocasión de las actividades de sus representantes orgánicos.

Presenter, Tenth Circuit Judicial Conference., Bruce Price

Bruce M Price

No abstract provided.

Explaining The Value Of Transactional Lawyering, Steven L. Schwarcz

ExpressO

This article attempts, empirically, to explain the value that lawyers add when acting as counsel to parties in business transactions. Contrary to existing scholarship, which is based mostly on theory, this article shows that transactional lawyers add value primarily by reducing regulatory costs, thereby challenging the reigning models of transactional lawyers as “transaction cost engineers” and “reputational intermediaries.” This new model not only helps inform contract theory but also reveals a profoundly different vision than existing models for the future of legal education and the profession.

Finding Nemo: Rediscovering The Virtues Of Negotiability In The Wake Of Enron, Adam J. Levitin

ExpressO

Creditors have long understood that any claims they submit for repayment in a bankruptcy might be valid, but subject to subordination in the order of payment of the bankruptcy estate’s limited funds if the creditor behaved inequitably as the debtor failed. A groundbreaking opinion in Enron’s on-going bankruptcy has expanded the practice of equitable subordination far beyond its traditional reach. According to the court, buyers of bankruptcy claims are now subject to subordination, not just for their own conduct, but also for conduct of previous owners of the claims, regardless of whether the conduct related to the claims.

In a …