Law Commons^™

Art Deaccessions And The Limits Of Fiduciary Duty, Sue Chen

Duke Law Student Papers Series

Art deaccessions prompt lawsuits against museums, and some commentators advocate using the stricter trust standard of care, instead of the prevailing corporate standard (business judgment rule), to evaluate the conduct of non‑profit museum boards. This Article explores the consequences of adopting the trust standard by applying it to previously unavailable deaccession policies of prominent art museums. It finds that so long as museum boards adhere to these policies, their decisions would satisfy the trust standard. This outcome illustrates an important limitation of fiduciary law: the trust standard evaluates procedural care but cannot assess deaccessions on their merits. Yet this limitation, …

Employee Participation In Corporate Governance: An Ethical Analysis, Michael Lp Lower

Michael LP Lower

This paper outlines why CST has called for employees to be involved in the governance of the firms that they work for and a share in ownership. It points out the economic issues involved as part of its broader ethical analysis. The John Lewis Partnership is pointed to as a good working model. The possible use of ESOPs to bring about desirable changes is considered. The case for mandatory codetermination is outlined.

Natural Law And Agency Theory, Michael Lp Lower

Michael LP Lower

Corporate governance scholarship is awash with theories of the firm: these are "stories" or metaphors that try to shed light on the nature and purpose of the firm as an institution and on one or more of the following questions:

(i) how the institution of the firm "evolved" (or its economic or social purpose); (ii) whether "the firm" is a reality or a rhetorical device; and (iii) the relationship between "the firm" and stakeholders, political society and so on.

Theories of the firm are used both to explain and to help develop law and policy. If the theory is misconceived, …

Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

PRESIDENT BUTLER of Columbia University is reported to have said in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1911, that "the limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modem times, whether you judge it by its social, by its ethical, by its industrial, or, in the long run--after we understand it and know how to use it,--by its political, effects." 1