Law Commons^™

Who Should Be Liable? Examining The Corporate Liability Regime For Cybersecurity Risks, Angel R. Gardner

Student Journal of Information Privacy Law

The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) poses new and substantial security risks for individual and national security. The IoT leaves networks susceptible to hacking, a form of unauthorized access into another person’s system or device. All devices that use the IoT are at risk of unauthorized access—a few examples include vehicles or medical devices. Currently, there are no regulations requiring corporations to protect their software from unauthorized intrusions. However, the current tort landscape does not allow for individuals to recover when there are unauthorized network intrusions where there is no tangible harm. This paper discusses why cybersecurity intrusions …

Duties Regarding Duties, Ronald J. Colombo

Marquette Law Review

Corporate directors are subject to the fiduciary duties of care and loyalty

in the discharge of their responsibilities. The demands of these duties, from

their precise contours to their application under a particular set of

circumstances, is oftentimes far from obvious.

In order to properly fulfill their duties of care and loyalty, corporate

directors necessarily depend upon corporate counsel: specialized attorneys,

whether in-house or external to the corporation, retained to advise and

represent the corporation. As attorneys, corporate counsel are themselves

subject to a wide array of professional responsibilities, ranging from the

exhortations of codes of ethics to duties the …

The Acquisition Of Twitter: The Legal Interplay Between Elon Musk, Shareholders, Employees, And The Government, Florence Shu-Blankson

University of Miami Business Law Review

This article examines the acquisition process of Twitter by Elon Musk. It will analyze the legal validity of Musk’s initial claims for rescinding his offer, as well as Twitter’s defense arguments. It will consider questions such as: Did Twitter cause a material adverse effect to its operations that would be a basis for Musk to avoid the deal? Did Musk run afoul of any regulatory requirements under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations? What impact did the ultimate sale of Twitter have on other stakeholders, such as corporate executives and non-executives, shareholders, employees. The …

The Reckless Tolerance Of Unsafe Autonomous Vehicle Testing: Uber's Culpability For The Criminal Offense Of Negligent Homicide, Helen Stamp

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

When Elaine Herzberg was struck and killed by an Uber autonomous vehicle on a public road in Arizona in 2018, sole criminal responsibility fell on the Uber employee operating the vehicle. Uber escaped all criminal accountability despite evidence of flawed vehicle technology and Uber’s non-existent safety culture. This lack of accountability is confronting given that legislators and courts in Arizona, and in other States, have consistently supported criminal sanctions for corporations who are culpable for the offense of negligent homicide.

The criminal proceedings against the Uber vehicle operator were settled in July 2023, closing off the court’s ability to consider …

Zooming In: Analyzing Annual Meeting Format Changes Amidst A Global Pandemic, Mark T. Wilhelm, Danielle Clifford

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Beginning in March of 2020, public companies in the United States were forced to take unprecedented measures to observe corporate formalities while following the government-mandated health and safety measures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Those measures made in-person activities and meetings either incredibly challenging or, in certain jurisdictions, illegal. Because “proxy season,” the time when public companies typically hold their annual meetings of stockholders, followed shortly after the mass implementation of COVID-19 lockdowns and quarantines, public companies that had historically held these meetings in-person were left scrambling to find an alternative means to meet. Nearly overnight, the pandemic caused an …

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

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dental Support Organizations And The Corporate Practice Of Dentistry: Will Streamlining Create Legal Violations?, Angelina Campin

DePaul Journal of Health Care Law

The increased use of technology when searching for health care providers means that consumers of dental care are more concerned with efficiency in making appointments and paying bills, immediate access to information, clear pricing, and transparency when it comes to choosing a provider and a facility to visit. Keeping up with the increased demands for efficiency and technological advances presents a challenge to sole practitioner dentists, which is the standard dental practice model. Dental support organizations (“DSOs”) have seen an increase in popularity recently, especially over the last five to ten years, in part to meet both the needs of …

Beyond Citizens United: Democratizing The Economy In The Wake Of The Small-Dollar Revolution, Jay Hedges

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Citizens United increases the power of corporations over our political process. Under current corporate governance laws, permission for corporations to behave as political actors ignores the consent of a particularly important constituency of these business entities—labor. This neglect of workers reveals three democratic crises resulting from the corporate structure in the United States, which have only intensified following Citizens United. First, while the political speaking-power of corporations has been substantially increased, these entities lack legitimacy to speak on behalf of their labor constituency. Second, the use of corporate profits, generated by the corporation’s labor force, as the means …

The Twenty-First Annual A.A. Sommer, Jr. Lecture On Corporate, Securities & Financial Law At The Fordham Corporate Law Center, Matthew Diller, G. Jeffrey Boujoukos, Ben A. Indek, Allison Herren Lee

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Non-Profit Organizations Should Prioritize Governance In Board Selection Decisions—Those That Prioritize Money May Pay Too Much, Heidi Grunwald, Daniel Isaacs

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Non-profit corporations must comply with federal tax laws, and their governing bodies must satisfy corporation law-based duties, but they are not subject to the regulatory requirements of publicly traded corporations. This discrepancy should be troubling, because the stakeholders of non-profit organizations are far more vulnerable than the typical investor. Accordingly, non-profit boards have a particularly strong need for good governance. However, our research shows that non-profit board members believe that board selection procedures prioritize giving over the ability to attract and retain members with attributes commonly associated with good governance. To address this problem, we argue that laws should require …

Peraturan Mahkamah Agung Republik Indonesia Nomor 13 Tahun 2016 Tentang Tata Cara Penanganan Perkara Tindak Pidana Oleh Korporasi; Solusi Sementara Upaya Meminta Pertanggungjawaban Pidana Korporasi, Wahyu Prestianto

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The desire of the community so that corporations in Indonesia can be held liable today seems to have been granted with the imposition of crimes against several corporations in Indonesia. This was realized with the issuance of the Indonesian Supreme Court Regulation No. 13 of 2016 concerning Procedures for Handling Criminal Acts by Corporations that is said have filled the vacuum of Indonesian criminal procedure law, which had been said to be an inhibiting factor in corporate action by law enforcement officials. It is important to discuss what are the obstacles to the prosecution process of the corporation and whether …

Corporate Bankruptcy Requirements & Impacts “Under The Egyptian Law, Belal A. Badawy

UAEU Law Journal

The term “Merchant” does not only make reference to a natural person, but can also mean a moral person and, more precisely, corporations. As firms acquire commercial capacity, they become subject to the same legal regulations governing individual merchants. They can then be declared bankrupt just at the moment that they stop paying their commercial debts.

While much emphasis has been placed on the provisions of bankruptcy generally in jurisprudence and legislation, the bankruptcy provisions of corporations are somehow overlooked, although such provisions are those which should have been given due attention, for two reasons:

First, the role of a …

Foundations And Types Of Criminal Liability Of A Legal Person In The English Law And The Penal Code Of The United Arab Emirates: A Comparative Study, Butti Sultan Al-Muhairi

UAEU Law Journal

This Article aims to determine the basis and type of corporate criminal liability provided by the UAE Penal Code. To achieve this aim, comparison has been made between the UAE Penal Code and the English Law. The development of corporate criminal liability within the English Law, the basis, type and theories established such liability have been examined. It is seen that the English Criminal Law makes distinction between two types of corporate criminal liability, indirect and direct liability. The English Courts base the indirect liability upon the principle of vicarious liability. This type of liability applies to offences of strict …

The State As A Shareholder: A Study Of Partial Privatization And Its Impacts On Corporate Governance In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Meshal Faraj

UAEU Law Journal

Different studies show that partially privatized firms outperform their private peers in Saudi Arabia. Ownership of Saudi government of publicly traded companies may be feasible economically, but legally creates a hard case. The literature of corporate governance is still unable to absorb the implications of government ownership. This study attempts to examine those implications and its impacts on jurisdictions featuring dual judicial legal systems (administrative and civil courts) through presenting Saudi Arabia case.

The Saudi government adopts the single tier board structure. Under this structure, only shareholders are entitled to elect board of directors. When the government holds a controlling …

The Alarming Legality Of Security Manipulation Through Shareholder Proposals, Artem M. Joukov, Samantha M. Caspar

Seattle University Law Review

Shareholder proposals attract attention from scholars in finance and economics because they present an opportunity to study both quasidemocratic decision-making at the corporate level and the impact of this decision-making on firm outcomes. These studies capture the effect of various proposals but rarely address whether regulations should allow many of them in the first place due to the possibility of stock price manipulation. Recent changes to shareholder proposal rules, adopted in September 2020, sought to address the potential for exploitation that some proposals create (but ultimately failed to do so). This Article shows the potential for apparently legal stock price …

Is Incorporation The Solution To The Enigma Of Corporate Tax Residency For International Tax Purposes?, Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln Iv

Texas A&M Law Review

Incorporation of a company for testing residency—if applied uniformly—is likely the best and most accurate way to reflect corporate residency for tax purposes. However, it does not always reflect economic reality. There is not a consensus on what the best approach is. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) countries overwhelmingly use three tests for residency: incorporation, central management and control, and domicile. Indeed, a court in the United States or other jurisdictions may often ask if tax-avoidance motives exist when incorporation occurs in one jurisdiction and central management and control occurs in another.

This Article follows the 2017 …

The Lost Lessons Of Shareholder Derivative Suits, Jessica Erickson

Washington and Lee Law Review

Merger litigation has changed dramatically. Today, nearly every announcement of a significant merger sparks litigation, and these cases look quite different from merger cases in the past. These cases are now filed primarily outside of Delaware, they typically settle without shareholders receiving any financial consideration, and corporate boards now have far more ex ante power to shape these cases. Although these changes are often heralded as unprecedented, they are not. Over the past several decades, derivative suits experienced many of the same changes. This Article explores the similarities between the recent changes in merger litigation and the longer history of …

Unsubstantiated Allegations And Organizational Culture, Eugene Soltes

Seattle University Law Review

When organizations investigate allegations of misconduct, they routinely determine that some allegations are unsubstantiated. A variety of factors may contribute to the conclusion that an allegation does not warrant substantiation, including a lack of supporting evidence, false claims against others within the organization, and a failure to conduct a thorough inquiry. This Article examines the potential value of examining unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct to better understand an organization’s culture. I show that unsubstantiated allegations provide insight into where future violations may occur, employees’ proclivity to engage in subsequent violations, and firm productivity. I conclude by discussing ways that organizations can …

Regulating Banking Ethics: A Toolkit, David Zaring

Seattle University Law Review

There is little doubt that culture matters for institutions—entities ranging from economics departments to soccer teams spend plenty of time thinking about the cultures they hope to foster—and that culture is also exceedingly hard to measure or define. Regulators now have had a decade since the financial crisis to operationalize their approach to guiding and improving the ethics and culture of the banks they oversee. Understanding what they have chosen to do makes it easier to assess the value of the effort to make cultural transformation an important part of a regulatory program. It also offers lessons to the broader …

In The Name Of Shareholder Value: Origin Myths Of Corporations And Their Ongoing Implications, Karen Ho

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Article analyzes some of the contemporary critiques of, and debates around, shareholder value in order to illustrate why many of these contestations demonstrate underlying gaps or problematic assertions in the history and politics of shareholder value, especially if they are delimited by the narrow legal frames and neoliberal assumptions of corporations. It also provides the context necessary to explicate and ground why shareholder primacy and ownership assumptions are historically and legally flawed, and how financial values and assumptions continue to be championed (and financial power elided), despite the recent implosions of shareholder value. Part II expands …

Management Culture And Surveillance, J.S. Nelson

Seattle University Law Review

As the modern workplace increasingly adopts technology, that technology is being used to surveil workers in ways that can be highly invasive. Ostensibly, management uses surveillance to assess workers’ productivity, but it uses the same systems to, for example, map their interpersonal relationships, study their conversations, collect data on their health, track where they travel on and off the job, as well as monitor and manipulate their emotional responses. Many of these overreaches are justified in the name of enterprise control. That justification should worry us. This Article aims to make us think about how surveillance is being used as …

Bank Culture And The Official Sector: A Spectrum Of Options, Michael Held, Thomas M. Noone

Seattle University Law Review

If you think culture is too squishy, please hear us out. In Part I of this Article, we set out what we mean by culture. In Part II, we explain why we are interested in culture and why it matters to us now. In Part III, we will survey the work of other public authorities in their efforts to address culture. In our view, these efforts fall into several categories along a spectrum from more advisory to more prescriptive. We do not endorse any particular method. All of these efforts are useful attempts to address a common problem: repeated ethical …

The Problem With Predators, June Carbone, William K. Black

Seattle University Law Review

Both corporate theory and sex discrimination law start with presumptions that CEOs seek to advance legitimate ends and design the internal organization of business enterprises to achieve such ends. Yet, a growing literature questions why CEOs and boards of directors nonetheless select for Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and toxic masculinity, despite the downsides associated with these traits. Three scholarly literatures—economics, criminology, and gender theory—draw on advances in psychology to shed new light on the construction of seemingly dysfunctional corporate cultures. They start by questioning the assumption that CEOs—even CEOs of seemingly mainstream businesses—necessarily seek to advance “legitimate” ends. Instead, they suggest …

Why Do Good People Do Bad Things? A Multi-Level Analysis Of Individual, Organizational, And Structural Causes Of White-Collar Crime, Dr. Joe Mcgrath

Seattle University Law Review

This Article draws on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) complaint against Serageldin, the transcript for his plea hearing, and the transcript for his sentencing hearing. The SEC’s complaint provides a prosecutorial account of the fraud. It also includes actual extracts from Serageldin’s recorded phone calls at Credit Suisse which provide a realtime narrative of the fraud. The court transcripts detail Serageldin’s own account of the fraud and give a biographical account of Serageldin’s life, provided by his mother, who offered character evidence on his behalf. These perspectives allowed for the recasting of the SEC’s account of the fraud and …

The Role Of The Board Of Financial Services Firms In Improving Their Firm's Culture, Ciaran Walker

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, we look at the role the board is expected to play under regulatory requirements and guidance; we then look specifically at the failings of boards in a number of the recent “scandals.” Finally, we offer a number of suggestions on ways in which the board can have a more effective role in improving firms’ culture. In this latter regard, we specifically focus on industry (rather than firm-specific) initiatives that could enable the board to have a more effective role, particularly in light of the setting up of the industry-funded Banking Standards Board in the U.K. and the …

Coercive Competition: A New Paradigm For Culture And Conduct Risk Management, Stephen Scott

Seattle University Law Review

Ultimately, this is an Article about human behavior, its causes and consequences. A subject so vast does not confine itself to any one, narrow, academic swim-lane and neither do I. Rather, I have afforded myself the luxury of borrowing liberally from a range of disciplines and their associated literatures, seeking to weave a coherent narrative that allows us to ask “what are we to do?” and to posit an approach to identifying responsive ideas that at least warrant some consideration.

The Effects Of Shareholder Primacy, Publicness, And "Privateness" On Corporate Cultures, Donald C. Langevoort

Seattle University Law Review

My conundrum question is this: suppose managerialism triumphed in the governance wars so as to regain its desired level of autonomy from shareholder pressures for boards and managers—would we then expect to see a cultural shift inside corporations toward greater honesty and civil engagement, and if so, why? A helpful diagnostic question is to ask how managers currently construe shareholder and market primacy. Have they internalized it as a value or do they instead resent the demands? My argument here leans more toward resentment, though my contribution is more about how to develop a credible hypothesis than how to prove …

"Tone At The Top" And The Communication Of Corporate Values: Lost In Translation?, Alfredo Contreras, Aiyesha Dey, Claire Hill

Seattle University Law Review

Many firms that were involved in large-scale corporate frauds had strong corporate codes of ethics and values statements. These firms were also subject to considerable social pressures to be mindful of their reputations; frauds are “negative reputational events.” Notably, the frauds not infrequently involved possible, or even outright, illegality. Why didn’t these strong forces—strong codes of ethics and firms’ clear interest in maintaining a good reputation, as well as the fear of legal liability—do more to prevent the frauds? It seems hard to imagine that serious misdeeds could occur if the top management was committed to preventing them. But top …

Developing Fiduciary Culture In Vietnam, Brian Jm Quinn

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines Vietnam’s efforts during the past two and a half decades to build up its legal infrastructure during its transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. In particular, this Article will focus on the development of legal and regulatory infrastructure to support the development of the corporate sector and fiduciary culture in Vietnam. In thinking about corporate law, I do not intend to single out this particular area of law as somehow special in the context of transition. In fact, its commonness and generality are what makes the experience of the development of corporate law and …

Epistemic Corporate Culture: Knowledge, Common Knowledge, And Professional Oaths, Boudewijn De Bruin

Seattle University Law Review

This Article does not assume that professional oaths accomplish what they are intended to do. Yet, I believe that oaths can fulfill important functions once they are crafted as part of carefully designed, more comprehensive approaches to managing ethical culture. Or better, I believe that by investigating more closely what an oath really is and what its preconditions are, we may gain insights that will help to change corporate culture for the better, even if companies do not wish to adopt oaths to manage ethics. Methodologically, this Article is grounded in various strands of philosophical research. In particular, I build …