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Articles 1 - 30 of 57
Full-Text Articles in Law
Snapchat's Gift: Equity Culture In High-Tech Firms, Amy Deen Westbrook, David A. Westbrook
Snapchat's Gift: Equity Culture In High-Tech Firms, Amy Deen Westbrook, David A. Westbrook
Journal Articles
Snap, Inc., the company that owns the platform Snapchat, controversially offered nonvoting common shares to the public in 2017. This Article asks what it means to invest in Snap or other (mostly technology-based) companies in which common shareholders collectibely have little or no power to influence corporate policy. In particular, why do such investors expect to be compensated? This Article explores the familiar rationales for equity investing, including stock appreciation and dividends, and the logical shortcomings of those rationales in these circumstances. Adopting Henry Manne's "two systems" approach to corporate affairs through both law and economics, we show that corporation …
The Compliance Process, Veronica Root Martinez
The Compliance Process, Veronica Root Martinez
Journal Articles
Even as regulators and prosecutors proclaim the importance of effective compliance programs, failures persist. Organizations fail to ensure that they and their agents comply with legal and regulatory requirements, industry practices, and their own internal policies and norms. From the companies that provide our news, to the financial institutions that serve as our bankers, to the corporations that make our cars, compliance programs fail to prevent misconduct each and every day. The causes of these compliance failures are multifaceted and include general enforcement deficiencies, difficulties associated with overseeing compliance programs within complex organizations, and failures to establish a culture of …
The Outsized Influence Of The Fcpa?, Veronica Root Martinez
The Outsized Influence Of The Fcpa?, Veronica Root Martinez
Journal Articles
The current power and influence of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) is really quite remarkable when one considers the statute was largely ignored for its first twenty-five years of existence. This statute, meant to reign in corruption by United States companies doing business abroad; has generated billions of dollars in revenue for the United States government; prompted the development of law firm practice groups and law school courses; become the subject of numerous scholarly articles; and has, arguably, made anti-bribery efforts the highest of priorities for multinational corporations engaged in robust compliance efforts. Corporations, scholars, and the public would …
The Diminishing Duty Of Loyalty, Julian Velasco
The Diminishing Duty Of Loyalty, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
Fiduciary duties comprise an integral part of corporate law. It is generally understood that directors owe the corporation and its shareholders two fiduciary duties: the duty of care and the duty of loyalty. Although both duties are firmly established in corporate law, they are not treated equally. It is generally understood that the duty of loyalty is enforced far more rigorously than the duty of care. The justification for this dichotomy is twofold. First, differential treatment is appropriate because of the relative urgencies of the underlying subject matter: loyalty issues pose greater risks than do care issues. Second, the deference …
The Big Crowd And The Small Enterprise: Intracorporate Disputes In The Close-But-Crowdfunded Firm, Martin Edwards
The Big Crowd And The Small Enterprise: Intracorporate Disputes In The Close-But-Crowdfunded Firm, Martin Edwards
Journal Articles
Equity crowdfunding is a financial innovation that allows small businesses and startups to access capital through soliciting investment over the Internet. The current literature on crowdfunding has focused on its theoretical background and on the development of crowdfunding exemptions from the securities laws permitting the practice. There is less discussion of the impact of crowdfunding on corporate governance. This article fills that gap by outlining the potential for a panoply of intracorporate disputes between and among majority shareholders and “crowd” minority shareholders, placing the discussion within the longstanding—if uneasy—divide in judicial treatment of disputes in public corporations and close corporations. …
The Yates Memo: Looking For "Individual Accountability" In All The Wrong Places, Katrice Bridges Copeland
The Yates Memo: Looking For "Individual Accountability" In All The Wrong Places, Katrice Bridges Copeland
Journal Articles
The Department of Justice has received a great deal of criticism for its failure to prosecute both corporations and individuals involved in corporate fraud. In an effort to quiet some of that criticism, on September 9, 2015, then Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates issued a policy entitled, "Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing," or the "Yates Memo," as it has been called. The main thrust of the Yates Memo is that in order for a corporation to receive any credit for cooperating with the government and obtain leniency in the form of a deferred prosecution agreement, the corporation must not …
Wage-Setting Institutions And Corporate Governance, Matthew Dimick, Neel Rao
Wage-Setting Institutions And Corporate Governance, Matthew Dimick, Neel Rao
Journal Articles
Why do corporate governance law and practice differ across countries? This paper explains how wage-setting institutions influence ownership structures and investor protection laws. In particular, we identify a nonmonotonic relationship between the level of centralization in wage-bargaining institutions and the level of ownership concentration and investor protection laws. As wage setting becomes more centralized, ownership concentration within firms at first becomes more, and then less, concentrated. In addition, the socially optimal level of investor protection laws is decreasing in ownership concentration. Thus, as wage-setting institutions become more centralized, investor protection laws become less and then more protective. This explanation is …
Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French
Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French
Journal Articles
On March 18, 2016, and March 22, 2016, a jury awarded Terry Bollea (a.k.a Hulk Hogan) a total of $140 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Gawker Media for posting less than two minutes of a video of Hulk Hogan having sex with his best friend’s wife. The award was based upon a finding that Gawker intentionally had invaded Hulk Hogan’s privacy by posting the video online. The case has been receiving extensive media coverage because it is a tawdry tale involving a celebrity, betrayal, adultery, sex, and the First Amendment. The case likely will be remembered by most …
The Insurability Of Claims For Restitution, Christopher French
The Insurability Of Claims For Restitution, Christopher French
Journal Articles
Does and should a wrongdoer’s liability insurance cover an aggrieved party’s claim for restitution (e.g., a claim for the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains)? This article answers those questions. It does so by first answering the question of whether claims for restitution are covered under the terms of liability insurance policies. Then, after concluding that they are, it addresses the question of whether claims for restitution should be insurable as a matter of public policy and insurance law theory. There are long-standing legal and equitable principles that, on the one hand, dictate that a wrongdoer should not be allowed to benefit …
A Defense Of The Corporate Law Duty Of Care, Julian Velasco
A Defense Of The Corporate Law Duty Of Care, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
Most people would acknowledge the importance of the duty of loyalty, but the same is not true of the duty of care. Historically, the corporate law duty of care has been underenforced at best, and arguably unenforced entirely. Some scholars do not consider the duty of care to be a fiduciary duty at all, and there are those who would do away with it entirely. In this paper, I intend to provide a comprehensive defense of the corporate law fiduciary duty of care. I hope to show that the duty of care is not simply an ill-fitting appendage to the …
The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French
The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French
Journal Articles
Risks in the world abound. Every day there is a chance that each of us could be in a car accident. Or, one of us could be the victim of a tornado, flood or earthquake. Every day someone becomes deathly ill from an insidious disease. Our properties are in constant peril—one’s house could catch fire at any time or a tree could fall on it during a storm. Any one of these events could have devastating financial consequences, and they are just a few of the many risks that impact our daily lives. One of the principal ways we manage …
The Role Of Comparative Law In Shaping Corporate Statutory Reforms, Marco Ventoruzzo
The Role Of Comparative Law In Shaping Corporate Statutory Reforms, Marco Ventoruzzo
Journal Articles
This Essay discusses how comparative law played and plays a role in the statutory development of corporate laws. The influence of laws of other systems on the development of statutory law is common, explicit, and represents a tradition that accompanied legal reforms since the very beginning of the development of legislation.
Focusing on modern corporate law, I argue (but the argument could be extended to many other legal fields) that it is necessary to distinguish two basic ways in which comparative law influences legal reforms in one particular jurisdiction. The first one is through regulatory competition among different systems. In …
The Monitor-“Client” Relationship, Veronica Root
The Monitor-“Client” Relationship, Veronica Root
Journal Articles
This Article argues that providing a set of clear, enforceable, predictable rules regarding the scope of monitorships that facilitate a monitor’s function as a legal counselor will improve the long-term effectiveness of monitorships. This Article suggests one mechanism for achieving this goal—a statutory privilege—aimed at encouraging a formalized relat+H23ionship amongst a monitor, the government, and the corporation, which re-conceptualizes the relationship as “The Monitor-‘Client’ Relationship.”
Auction Theory And Standstills: Dealing With Friends And Foes In A Sale Of Corporate Control, Christina M. Sautter
Auction Theory And Standstills: Dealing With Friends And Foes In A Sale Of Corporate Control, Christina M. Sautter
Journal Articles
A fundamental issue in Delaware mergers & acquisitions (M&A) law is the extent to which a target company’s board of directors may restrict a sales process to extract value from bidders and grant a “winning bidder” certain deal protections to protect a transaction from being overbid. Standstill agreements are one such form of deal protection. Standstills prevent bidders from making or announcing a bid for the target without the target’s consent both during the sales process and for a period after the sales process is completed and the target has executed an agreement with a “winning bidder.” Recent 2011 and …
Fiduciary Duties And Fiduciary Outs, Julian Velasco
Fiduciary Duties And Fiduciary Outs, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
Fiduciary outs are virtually ubiquitous in acquisition agreements, but almost unheard of in other contexts. This is because the fiduciary out is an inherently problematic device. Although it is not intended to do so, it almost necessarily transforms an agreement into an option in the hands of one party. Nevertheless, fiduciary outs make sense in the context of acquisition agreements. This is because fiduciary outs are essentially contractual proxies for fiduciary duties. As such, they have the same purpose: to protect shareholders from abuse at the hands of directors. Fiduciary outs do this in the context of acquisition agreements by …
Issuing New Shares And Preemptive Rights: A Comparative Analysis, Marco Ventoruzzo
Issuing New Shares And Preemptive Rights: A Comparative Analysis, Marco Ventoruzzo
Journal Articles
The question of whether the corporate law of Europe and America are converging is still largely unanswered. One fundamental area in which the two systems diverge concerns how they regulate the issuing of new shares, in particular preemptive rights, a problem rarely addressed by comparative corporate law scholars. This essay fills that gap by examining the major comparative differences between the approaches followed on the two sides of the Atlantic, and offers some possible explanations for this divergence.
From Institutional Misalignments To Socially Sustainable Governance: The Guiding Principles For The Implementation Of The United Nations Protect, Respect And Remedy And The Construction Of Inter-Systemic Global Governance, Larry Cata Backer
Journal Articles
Once upon a time, and for a very short time, there was something that people in authority, and those who manage collective memory, considered a stable system of political and economic organization. It was grounded on a complex division of authority between states, economic entities and social collectives. Contemporary economic globalization has destabilized this traditional system. Corporations are no longer completely controlled by the states that chartered them or within complex enterprises, even by those in which they operate. Social collectives now operate to change the political cultures that affect the public policy of states and the economic behavior of …
The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French
Journal Articles
As a result of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco which destroyed the city, a clause known as the “ensuing loss” clause was created to address concurrent causation situations in which a loss follows both a covered peril and an excluded peril. Ensuing loss clauses appear in the exclusions section of such policies and in essence they provide that coverage for a loss caused by an excluded peril is nonetheless covered if the loss “ensues” from a covered peril. Today, ensuing loss clauses are found in “all risk” property and homeowners policies, which cover all losses except for …
The Role Of Aspiration In Corporate Fiduciary Duties, Julian Velasco
The Role Of Aspiration In Corporate Fiduciary Duties, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
Corporate law is characterized by a pervasive divergence between standards of conduct and standards of review. Courts often opine on the relatively demanding standard of conduct, but their judgements must be based on the more forgiving standard of review. Commentators defend this state of affairs by insisting that it provides guidance to directors without imposing ruinous liability. However, the dichotomy can lead many, especially those who focus on the bottom line, to call into question the meaningfulness of standards of conduct. Of particular concern is the increasing popularity, in legal and scholarly circles, of the notion that fiduciary duty standards …
The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French
The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French
Journal Articles
How long-tail liability claims such as asbestos bodily injury claims and environmental property damage claims are allocated among multiple triggered policy years can result in the shifting of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from one party to another. In recent years, insurers have argued that clauses commonly titled, “Prior Insurance and Non-Cumulation of Liability” (referred to herein as “Non-Cumulation Clauses”), which are found in commercial liability policies, should be applied to reduce or eliminate their coverage responsibilities for long-tail liability claims by shifting their coverage responsibilities to insurers that issued policies in earlier policy years. The insurers’ argument …
Private Actors And Public Governance Beyond The State: The Multinational Corporation, The Financial Stability Board And The Global Governance Order, Larry Cata Backer
Private Actors And Public Governance Beyond The State: The Multinational Corporation, The Financial Stability Board And The Global Governance Order, Larry Cata Backer
Journal Articles
Transnational corporations are at the center of extraordinary and complex governance systems that are developing outside the state and international public organizations, and beyond the conventionally legitimating framework of the forms of domestic or international hard law. Though these systems are sometimes recognized as autonomous and authoritative among its members, they are neither isolated from each other nor from the states with which they come into contact. Together these systems may begin to suggest a new template for networked governance beyond the state, but one in which public and private actors are integrated stakeholders. This provides the source of the …
On The Evolution Of The United Nations’ 'Protect-Respect-Remedy' Project: The State, The Corporation And Human Rights In A Global Governance Context, Larry Cata Backer
On The Evolution Of The United Nations’ 'Protect-Respect-Remedy' Project: The State, The Corporation And Human Rights In A Global Governance Context, Larry Cata Backer
Journal Articles
The advent of contemporary economic globalization has substantially altered the regulatory environment in which economic enterprises operate. Once assumed to be creatures of the states that recognized and regulated their existence, economic enterprises today are increasingly capable of arranging their activities beyond the regulatory scope of any state or groups of states. That gap between operational and regulatory capacity has produced a sustained reaction at the national and international levels. States have sought to extend their power over corporations beyond their borders. International organizations have sought to develop supra national legal governance frameworks. This paper examines one of the more …
Strategic Spillovers, Daniel B. Kelly
Strategic Spillovers, Daniel B. Kelly
Journal Articles
The conventional problem with externalities is well known: Parties often generate harm as an unintended byproduct of using their property. This Article examines situations in which parties may generate harm purposely, in order to extract payments in exchange for desisting. Such “strategic spillovers” have received relatively little attention, but the problem is a perennial one. From the “livery stable scam” in Chicago to “pollution entrepreneurs” in China, parties may engage in externality-generating activities they otherwise would not have undertaken, or increase the level of harm given that they are engaging in such activities, to profit through bargaining or subsidies. This …
Somebody's Watching Me: Fcpa Monitorships And How They Can Work Better, F. Joseph Warin, Michael S. Diamant, Veronica S. Root
Somebody's Watching Me: Fcpa Monitorships And How They Can Work Better, F. Joseph Warin, Michael S. Diamant, Veronica S. Root
Journal Articles
This article explores the rise of the corporate compliance monitor as a condition for settling violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) — a setting in which federal prosecutors routinely impose monitors. If U.S. enforcement authorities maintain their current approach, the reality is that companies facing liability for violating the FCPA are likely to have a monitor imposed on them as part of a settlement agreement. From the U.S. government’s perspective, monitorships make sense for companies that violate anti-bribery laws, making it important for offending corporations to learn how to deal with monitors. Pulling from the authors’ extensive …
Freeze-Outs: Transcontinental Analysis And Reform Proposals, Marco Ventoruzzo
Freeze-Outs: Transcontinental Analysis And Reform Proposals, Marco Ventoruzzo
Journal Articles
One of the most crucial, but systematically neglected, comparative differences between corporate law systems in Europe and in the United States concerns the regulations governing freeze-out transactions in listed corporations. Freeze-outs can be defined as transactions in which the controlling shareholder exercises a legal right to buy out the shares of the minority, and consequently delists the corporation and brings it private. Beyond this essential definition, the systems diverge profoundly.
This gap exists despite the fact that minority freeze-outs are one of the most debated issues in corporate law, in the public media, in a vast body of scholarly work …
How Many Fiduciary Duties Are There In Corporate Law?, Julian Velasco
How Many Fiduciary Duties Are There In Corporate Law?, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
Historically, there were two main fiduciary duties in corporate law, care and loyalty, and only the duty of loyalty was likely to lead to liability. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Delaware Supreme Court breathed life into the duty of care, created a number of intermediate standards of review, elevated the duty of good faith to equal standing with care and loyalty, and announced a unified test for review of breaches of fiduciary duty. The law, which once seemed so straightforward, suddenly became elaborate and complex. In 2006, in the case of Stone v. Ritter, the Delaware Supreme Court rejected …
Preserving The Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege, Katrice Bridges Copeland
Preserving The Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege, Katrice Bridges Copeland
Journal Articles
This Article argues that, while legislation such as the Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act ("ACPPA") is necessary to preserve that corporate attorney-client privilege, any such legislation must include judicial oversight to deter prosecutorial misconduct effectively. Part II examines the costs and benefits of granting corporations the attorney-client privilege in criminal investigations. It concludes that the benefits of the privilege fat outweigh the costs and that the privilege must be safeguarded from unnecessary infringement. Part III traces the evolution of the DOJ's waiver policies that have threatened the corporate attorney-client privilege. It also examines the costs and benefits of the waiver policy …
Freeze-Outs: Transcontinental Analysis And Reform Proposals, Marco Ventoruzzo
Freeze-Outs: Transcontinental Analysis And Reform Proposals, Marco Ventoruzzo
Journal Articles
One of the most crucial, but systematically neglected, comparative differences between corporate law systems in Europe and in the United States concerns the regulations governing freeze-out transactions in listed corporations. Freeze-outs can be defined as transactions in which the controlling shareholder exercises a legal right to buy out the shares of the minority, and consequently delists the corporation and brings it private. Beyond this essential definition, the systems diverge profoundly. This gap exists despite the fact that minority freeze-outs are one of the most debated issues in corporate law, in the public media, in a vast body of scholarly work …
Shareholder Ownership And Primacy, Julian Velasco
Shareholder Ownership And Primacy, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
According to the traditional view, the shareholders own the corporation. Until relatively recently, this view enjoyed general acceptance. Today, however, there seems to be substantial agreement among legal scholars and others in the academy that shareholders do not own corporations. In fact, the claim that shareholders do own corporations often is dismissed as merely a “theory,” a “naked assertion,” or even a “myth.” And yet, outside of the academy, views on the corporation remain quite traditional. Most people - not just the public and the media, but also politicians, and even bureaucrats and the courts - seem to believe that …
Twenty-Eight Words: Enforcing Corporate Fiduciary Duties Through Criminal Prosecution Of Honest Services Fraud, Lisa L. Casey
Twenty-Eight Words: Enforcing Corporate Fiduciary Duties Through Criminal Prosecution Of Honest Services Fraud, Lisa L. Casey
Journal Articles
This article examines the federal government's growing use of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 to prosecute public company executives for breaching their fiduciary duties. Section 1346 is a controversial but under-examined statute making it a felony to engage in a scheme "to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." Although enacted by Congress over twenty years ago, the Supreme Court repeatedly declined to review the statute, until now. In 2009, Justice Antonin Scalia pointed to the numerous interpretive questions dividing the federal appellate courts and proclaimed that it was "quite irresponsible" to let the "current chaos prevail." Since then, …