Law Commons^™

A New Urban Front For Shareholder Primacy, Anne Choike

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The hundredth anniversary of Dodge v. Ford marks an occasion to reflect upon what, if anything, has changed about shareholder primacy in a century. Seizing this opportunity, in this Article I analyze new local laws and ordinances that promote stakeholder governance and engagement, which seek to protect the interests of non-shareholder constituencies such as workers, the environment, and the communities in which corporations operate, among others. In doing so, I argue that such local laws meaningfully differ from traditional stakeholder protections, most significantly in the way that they weaken managerial accountability to shareholders. The emergence of these city laws challenges …

The Plight Of Women In Positions Of Corporate Leadership In The United States, The European Union, And Japan: Differing Laws And Cultures, Similar Issues, Bettina C. K. Binder, Terry Morehead Dworkin, Niculina Nae, Cindy A. Schipani, Irina Averianova

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Gender diversity in corporate governance is a highly debated issue worldwide. National campaigns such as “2020 Women on Boards” in the United States and “Women on the Board Pledge for Europe” are examples of just two initiatives aimed at increasing female representation in the corporate boardroom. Several

European countries have adopted board quotas as a means toward achieving gender diversity. Japan has passed an Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace to lay a foundation for establishing targets for promoting women.

This Article examines the status of women in positions of leadership in the United States, …

Should Shareholders Be Rewarded For Loyalty? European Experiments On The Wedge Between Tenured Voting And Takeover Law, Chiara Mosca

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Corporate law reveals its democratic background when it comes to the general meetings of shareholders, finding, on both sides of the Atlantic, its most tangible expression in the “one share, one vote” principle. While, in the political landscape, the “one person, one vote” standard is absolute dogma and weighting votes according to people’s preferences and interests has never proved feasible, in the corporate scenario the one share, one vote principle is constantly challenged by the incentives of companies and their shareholders to shape corporate rights according to specific needs. In this respect, some legislators (specifically in France and Italy) have …

Do Institutional Owners Monitor? Evidence From Voting On Connected Transaction Proposals In Hong Kong-Listed Companies, Félix E. Mezzanotte, Simon Fung

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The conventional view in Hong Kong has been that institutional owners tend to be passive owners and that they do little to monitor the companies’ management. We investigated whether the presence of institutional owners in Hong Kong-listed companies was associated with greater monitoring of management through dissent voting by hand-collecting information for a sample (n= 96) of connected transaction proposals (“CT proposals”) and of their voting outcomes, as announced in the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong during the period from 2012–14. Our study shows that voting approval rates on CT proposals were lower (i.e. greater dissent voting) when institutional owners …

Third-Party Institutional Proxy Advisors: Conflicts Of Interest And Roads To Reform, Matthew Fagan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

With the rise of institutional activist investors in recent decades—including a purported 495 activist campaigns against U.S. corporations in 2016 alone—the role that third-party institutional proxy advisors play in corporate governance has greatly increased. The United States Office of Government Accountability estimates that clients of the top five proxy advisory firms account for about $41.5 trillion in equity throughout the world. For several years, discussions have developed regarding conflicts of interest faced by proxy advisors. For example, Institutional Shareholder Services, the top proxy advisory firm in the world, frequently provides advice to institutional investors on how to vote proxies while …

Human Rights And Cybersecurity Due Diligence: A Comparative Study, Scott J. Shackelford

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

No company, just like no nation, is an island in cyberspace; the actions of actors from hacktivists to nation-states have the potential to impact the bottom line, along with the human rights of consumers and the public writ large. To help meet the multifaceted challenges replete in a rapidly globalizing world—and owing to the relative lack of binding international law to regulate both cybersecurity and the impact of business on human rights—companies are reconceptualizing what constitutes “due diligence.” This Article takes lessons from both the cybersecurity and human rights due diligence contexts to determine areas for cross-pollination in an effort …

Finance And Growth: The Legal And Regulatory Implications Of The Role Of The Public Equity Market In The United States, Ezra Wasserman Mitchell

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The important study of the relationship between finance and economic growth has exploded over the past two decades. One of the most significant open questions is the role of the public equity market in stimulating growth and the channels it follows if it does. This paper examines that question from an economic, legal, and historical perspective, especially with regard to its regulatory and corporate governance implications. The US market is my focus.

In contrast to most studies, I follow both economic history and the actual flow of funds in addition to empirics and theory to conclude that the public equity …

Using Proactive Legal Strategies For Corporate Environmental Sustainability, Gerlinde Berger-Walliser, Paul Shrivastava, Adam Sulkowski

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

We argue that proactive law can help organizations be more sustainable. Toward that end, this Article first summarizes proactive law literature as it pertains to corporate sustainability. Next, it examines a series of cases on the pivotal nexus between proactive law and corporate sustainability. It then advances novel propositions that connect proactive law to central organizational design elements. The discussion traces further implications and suggests fruitful avenues for research and ways of using proactive law for firms to become more sustainable.

Lessons From Institutional Shareholder Services: Governing Benefit Corporations' Third-Party Standard, Tammi S. Etheridge

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Almost one hundred years ago, Henry Ford, as CEO of the Ford Motor Company, announced a plan to cease payment of special dividends to shareholders. Instead, the company would reinvest its profits to employ more workers and build more factories. Investing in new workers and factories would cut the cost of cars and make them affordable to more people. Ford publicly declared that his “ambition [was] to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting …

The Compliance Case For Social Enterprise, Joseph W. Yockey

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Social enterprises generate revenue to solve social, humanitarian, and ecological problems. Their products are not a means to the end of profits, but rather profits are a means to the end of their production. This dynamic presents many of the same corporate governance issues facing other forprofit firms, including legal compliance. The author contends, however, that traditional strategies for corporate compliance are incongruent to the social enterprise’s unique normative framework. Specifically, traditional compliance theory, with its prioritization of shareholder interests, stands at odds with the social enterprise’s mission-driven purpose. Attention to this distinction is essential for developing effective compliance and …

Venture Capital Investments In China: The Use Of Offshore Financing Structures And Corporate Relocations, Jing Li

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Based on an analysis of the relevant Chinese laws and regulations governing the corporate governance structure of venture capital (“VC”)-invested firms, as well as a discussion on the feasibility of employing different alternatives to make direct and indirect VC investments in Chinese portfolio firms, this article studies a hand-collected sample consisting of the twenty-nine VCbacked Chinese portfolio firms that have been financed and listed from 1990 to 2005 in order to empirically show how these investments were actually made in practice. The findings show that twenty-three out of the twentynine firms received their VC investments in various offshore holding entities, …

On The Role And Regulation Of Proxy Advisors, Paul Rose

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In anticipation of proxy season-the springtime ritual where companies prepare and deliver proxy statements in preparation for annual shareholder meetings-U.S. public companies typically reexamine their corporate governance structures and policies. Many corporate governance structures that were acceptable ten years ago are now considered outmoded or even evidence of managerial entrenchment. For example, consider the classified board of directors. In recent years, many companies have shifted from a classified board of directors to an annually elected board. A company might adopt an annually-elected board structure for a number of reasons. A classified board can serve as an entrenchment device, for instance, …

Has Corporate Law Failed? Addressing Proposals For Reform, Antony Page

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Review discusses the modem "nexus of contracts" approach to corporations and highlights how Greenfield's views differ. Part II examines corporate goals and purposes, suggesting that Greenfield overstates the impact of the shareholder-primacy norm and does not offer a preferable alternative. Part III critiques the means to the ends--Greenfield's proposals for changing the mechanics of corporate governance. Although several of his proposals are intriguing, they seem unlikely to achieve their pro-social aims. This Review remains skeptical, in part because-even given its problems-the U.S. "director-centric governance structure has created the most successful economy the world has ever seen." …

Administrative Governance As Corporate Governance: A Partial Explanation For The Growth Of China's Stock Markets, David A. Caragliano

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note argues that during the first decade of stock market development (roughly 1990-2000) Chinese institutions, which emphasized administrative direction and control, functioned in lieu of legal and financial institutions. Preexisting modes of administrative governance introduced incentives that mitigated information asymmetry problems inherent in initial public offerings (IPOs) and contributed to enhanced market valuation during the post-IPO phase. The author focuses on two sui generis Chinese institutions employed during this time period: the quota system for equity share issuance and the Special Treatment (ST) system for underperforming issuers. In short, the thesis is that administrative governance substituted for corporate governance.

Gatekeeper Failures: Why Important, What To Do, Merritt B. Fox

Michigan Law Review

The United States was hit by a wave of corporate scandals that crested between late 2001 and the end of 2002. Some were traditional scandals involving insiders looting company assets - the most prominent being Tyco, HealthSouth, and Adelphia. But most were what might be called "financial scandals": attempts by an issuer to maximize the market price of its securities by creating misimpressions as to what its future cash flows were likely to be. Enron and WorldCom were the most spectacular examples of these financial scandals. In scores of additional cases, the companies involved and their executives were sued by …

Rewarding Outside Directors, Assaf Hamdani, Reinier Kraakman

Michigan Law Review

While they often rely on the threat of penalties to produce deterrence, legal systems rarely use the promise of rewards. In this Article, we consider the use of rewards to motivate director vigilance. Measures to enhance director liability are commonly perceived to be too costly. We, however demonstrate that properly designed reward regimes could match the behavioral incentives offered by negligence-based liability regimes but with significantly lower costs. We further argue that the market itself cannot implement such a regime in the form of equity compensation for directors. We conclude by providing preliminary sketches of two alternative reward regimes. While …

Mickey, Can You Spare A Dime? Disneywar, Executive Compensation, Corporate Governance, And Business Law Pedagogy, Kenneth M. Rosen

Michigan Law Review

American business executives are under fire. Recent, notorious difficulties at companies such as the Enron Corporation brought attention to these individuals. Notwithstanding the conclusion of the trials of some of those top executives, skepticism remains about the inner workings of U.S. corporations and the quality of corporate governance. Drawing special scrutiny from some quarters is the compensation granted to corporate officers and directors. For instance, the timing of certain stock option grants, a key component of some compensation packages, raised ire because of those options' supposed backdating and fortuitous proximity to increases in share prices. Further, some questioned more generally …

Brand New Deal: The Branding Effect Of Corporate Deal Structures, Victor Fleischer

Michigan Law Review

Consider the unusual legal structures of the following four deals: When Google went public in 2004, it used an Internet auction to sell its stock to shareholders. When Ben & Jerry's went public in 1984, it sold its stock only to Vermont residents. Steve Jobs's contract with Apple entitles him to an annual cash salary of exactly one dollar. Stanley Works, a Connecticut toolmaker, considered reincorporating in Bermuda to reduce its tax liability. Under public pressure, it changed its mind and remains legally incorporated in Connecticut. What do these deals have in common? In each case, the legal infrastructure of …

The Next Generation: Milhaupt And West On Japanese Economic Law, Kent Anderson

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Economic Organizations and Corporate Governance in Japan: The Impact of Formal and Informal Rules by Curtis Milhaupt & Mark West

Is U.S. Ceo Compensation Inefficient Pay Without Performance?, John E. Core, Wayne R. Guay, Randall S. Thompson

Michigan Law Review

In Pay Without Performance, Professors Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried develop and summarize the leading critiques of current executive compensation practices in the United States. This book, and their highly influential earlier article, Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation, with David Walker offer a negative, if mainstream, assessment of the state of U.S. executive compensation: U.S. executive compensation practices are failing in a widespread manner, and much systemic reform is needed. The purpose of our Review is to summarize the book and to offer some counterarguments to try to balance what is becoming …

A Primer On The Theory, Practice, And Pedagogy Underpinning A School Of Thought On Law And Business, James E. Holloway

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Recent policyless and lawless business decisions have prompted the judiciary and legislature to erode managerial discretion and judgment. This Article is a primer on the theoretical, practical, and pedagogical requirements for a legal-managerial school of thought to measure the business losses created by these judicial and legislative responses. A legal-managerial school must provide a theoretical evaluation of law and public policy, a practical integration of legal analysis and business methodology, and a pedagogical expansion of legal thinking to include business information. This Article initiates the debate on how a legal-managerial school of thought can further the study, practice, and teaching …

Realigning Corporate Governance: Shareholder Activism By Labor Unions, Stewart J. Schwab, Randall S. Thomas

Michigan Law Review

Labor unions are active again - but this time as capitalists. The potential strength of union pension funds has long been noted, but until recently unions have held their stock passively or invested in union-friendly companies. In the 1990s, however, unions have become the most aggressive of all institutional shareholders. In most cases, it is hard to find a socialist or proletarian plot in what unions are doing with their shares. Rather, labor activism is a model for any large institutional investor attempting to maximize return on capital. Unions, union pension funds, individual union members, and labor-oriented investment funds are …

Protecting Nonshareholder Interests In The Market For Corporate Control: A Role For State Takeover Statutes, Frank J. Garcia

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note describes a phenomenon of modern corporate activity first identified over fifty years ago as the "separation of ownership and control." This separation gives rise to the need for a governing corporate norm; recognizing the normative aspect of this phenomenon has direct implications for the takeover debate.

Part II analyzes the problem of a target board's fiduciary duty as the modern version of the fundamental normative issue of corporate law. It argues that the norm of shareholder wealth maximization, assumed as the starting point by those most in favor of an active and minimally regulated control …

Towards A European Constitution Of The Firm: Problems And Perspectives, Thomas E. Abeltshauser

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will discuss in particular the proposed EEC directive on the harmonization of corporate structures as well as the proposed regulation of the Societas Europea. Initially, these proposals were strongly oriented toward German law. As such, a corporation had to have a managing board as well as a so-called supervisory board and a general meeting of stockholders. Since the EEC Commission published the so-called "Green Paper," which contains a comparative analysis of national legal systems requirements for the structure of corporations and provisions for co-determination rights for employees at the board level, the new proposals concerning the constitution of …

Federal Chartering Revisited, Donald E. Schwartz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The protections that corporation law provided to shareholders and to our economic community against the excesses and complacency of corporate directors and managers have undergone a general weakening. Although it is uncertain whether the ALI can accomplish effective and meaningful reforms, this effort may be the most important attempt by the corporate community to reform itself.

Beyond Managerialism: Investor Capitalism?, Alfred F. Conard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Capitalism, in most large public corporations, has been subtly transformed from a system of dominance by the suppliers of capital to a system of dominance by the managers, dubbed "managerialism." In many respects, managerialism is beneficial to investors and other enterprise constituencies, since managers' rewards typically grow with the profitability of the enterprise. But managerialism permits drastic wastes of resources when managers hang on to their jobs after they have become inefficient or spend lavishly to defend themselves against takeover bids. Derivative suits, shareholder proposals, independent directors, and other prescriptions have failed to stifle managerial abuses. This is the message …

Two Models Of Corporate Governance: Beyond Berle And Means, Lynne L. Dallas

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article introduces a new model of corporate governance, which challenges, as did Berle and Means, the conclusions drawn from the traditional ownership model. Rather than focusing upon the inefficiencies of the large complex firm resulting from the separation of share ownership and control, however, this new model, which I call the power model, focuses upon the political nature of decision making in the large corporation, which exists regardless of the identity of the entrepreneur.

Introduction, Joel Seligman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Introduction for the 1988 Journal of Law Reform Symposium: Issues in Corporate Governance.

Suing In The Right Of The Corporation: A Commentary And Proposal For Legislative Reform, Lawrence A. Larose

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article is premised on the belief that the derivative action is uniquely susceptible to strike suit litigation-that is, actions with little or no substantive merit but pursued to exploit the nuisance value inherent in litigation. Although there is historic support for the notion of "pernicious and vexing" derivative litigation, some modern evidence suggests that the vast majority of publicly held companies experience no derivative litigation. Commentators, however, have questioned both the validity of the modern evidence and the conclusions derived from it. Despite these criticisms, observers of the present vitality of the derivative action, far from characterizing it as …

The Supervision Of Corporate Management: A Comparison Of Developments In European Community And United States Law, Alfred F. Conard

Michigan Law Review

In 1971, Eric Stein published an account of the remarkable progress of the European Economic Community (EEC) toward a harmonized law of business corporations. The progress was particularly striking from an American viewpoint, because the harmonization was achieved by moving toward the more rigorous of the various national standards, in contrast to the "race of laxity" or "race for the bottom" that has characterized the movement toward uniformity in the corporation laws of U.S. states.