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The (Misunderstood) Genius Of American Corporate Law, Robert B. Ahdieh
The (Misunderstood) Genius Of American Corporate Law, Robert B. Ahdieh
Faculty Scholarship
In this Reply, I respond to comments by Bill Bratton, Larry Cunningham, and Todd Henderson on my recent paper - Trapped in a Metaphor: The Limited Implications of Federalism for Corporate Governance. I begin by reiterating my basic thesis - that state competition should be understood to have little consequence for corporate governance, if (as charter competition's advocates assume) capital-market-driven managerial competition is also at work. I then consider some of the thoughtful critiques of this claim, before suggesting ways in which the comments highlight just the kind of comparative institutional analysis my paper counsels. Rather than a stark choice …
Trapped In A Metaphor: The Limited Implications Of Federalism For Corporate Governance, Robert B. Ahdieh
Trapped In A Metaphor: The Limited Implications Of Federalism For Corporate Governance, Robert B. Ahdieh
Faculty Scholarship
Trapped in a metaphor articulated at the founding of modern corporate law, the study of corporate governance has - for some thirty years - been asking the wrong questions. Rather than a singular race among states, whether to the bottom or the top, the synthesis of William Cary and Ralph Winter’s famous exchange is better understood as two competitions, each serving distinct normative ends. Managerial competition advances the project that has motivated corporate law since Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means - effective regulation of the separation of ownership and control. State competition, by contrast, does not promote a race to …
The Proxy Advisory & Corporate Governance Industry: The Case For Increased Oversight And Control, Tamara C. Belinfanti
The Proxy Advisory & Corporate Governance Industry: The Case For Increased Oversight And Control, Tamara C. Belinfanti
Articles & Chapters
The proxy advisory and corporate governance industry plays a significant role in shareholder voting and in the formulation of corporate governance policy. The industry operates with relatively little accountability and virtually free from regulatory oversight. Understanding the relationship between this industry and mutual funds, who in the aggregate are the largest owners of publicly traded shares in the United States, is critical to understanding issues of shareholder rights, the meaning of the right to vote in corporate elections, and the role that institutional investors, like mutual funds, play in the corporate landscape.
Mutual funds exercise their substantial voting power by …
Leverage In The Board Room: The Unsung Influence Of Private Lenders In Corporate Governance, Frederick Tung
Leverage In The Board Room: The Unsung Influence Of Private Lenders In Corporate Governance, Frederick Tung
Faculty Scholarship
The influence of banks and other private lenders pervades public companies. From the first day of a lending arrangement, loan covenants and built-in contingency provisions affect managerial decision making. Conventional corporate governance analysis has been slow to notice or account for this lender influence. Corporate governance discourse has traditionally focused only on corporate law arrangements. The few existing accounts of creditors' influence over firm managers emphasize the drastic actions creditors take in extreme cases - when a firm is in serious trouble - but in fact, private lender influence is a routine feature of corporate governance even absent financial distress. …