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Full-Text Articles in Law
Transactional Scripts In Contract Stacks, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman
Transactional Scripts In Contract Stacks, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman
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Deals accomplished through software persistently residing on computer networks—sometimes called smart contracts, but better termed transactional scripts—embody a potentially revolutionary contracting innovation. Ours is the first precise account in the legal literature of how such scripts are created, and when they produce errors of legal significance.
Scripts’ most celebrated use case is for transactions operating exclusively on public, permissionless, blockchains: such exchanges eliminate the need for trusted intermediaries and seem to permit parties to commit ex ante to automated performance. But public transactional scripts are costly both to develop and execute, with significant fees imposed for data storage. Worse, bugs …
Bankruptcy’S Uneasy Shift To A Contract Paradigm, David A. Skeel Jr., George Triantis
Bankruptcy’S Uneasy Shift To A Contract Paradigm, David A. Skeel Jr., George Triantis
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The most dramatic development in twenty-first century bankruptcy practice has been the increasing use of contracts to shape the bankruptcy process. To explain the new contract paradigm—our principal objective in this Article-- we begin by examining the structure of current bankruptcy law. Although the Bankruptcy Code of 1978 has long been viewed as mandatory, its voting and cramdown rules, among others, invite considerable contracting. The emerging paradigm is asymmetric, however. While the Code and bankruptcy practice allow for ex post contracting, ex ante contracts are viewed with suspicion.
We next use contract theory to assess the two modes of contracting. …
Amending Corporate Charters And Bylaws, Albert H. Choi, Geeyoung Min
Amending Corporate Charters And Bylaws, Albert H. Choi, Geeyoung Min
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Recently, courts have embraced the contractarian theory that corporate charters and bylaws constitute a “contract” between the shareholders and the corporation and have been more willing to uphold bylaws unilaterally adopted by the directors. This paper examines the contractarian theory by drawing a parallel between amending charters and bylaws, on the one hand, and amending contracts, on the other. In particular, the paper compares the right to unilaterally amend corporate bylaws with the right to unilaterally modify contract terms, and highlights how contract law imposes various limitations on the modifying party’s discretion. More generally, when the relationship of contracting parties …
Clawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures In An Era Of Excessive Executive Compensation And Ponzi Schemes, Miriam A. Cherry, Jarrod Wong
Clawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures In An Era Of Excessive Executive Compensation And Ponzi Schemes, Miriam A. Cherry, Jarrod Wong
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In the spring of 2009, public outcry erupted over the multi-million dollar bonuses paid to AIG executives even as the company was receiving TARP funds. Various measures were proposed in response, including a 90% retroactive tax on the bonuses, which the media described as a "clawback." Separately, the term "clawback" was also used to refer to remedies potentially available to investors defrauded in the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff. While the media and legal commentators have used the term "clawback" reflexively, the concept has yet to be fully analyzed. In this article, we propose a doctrine of …
The "Nexus Of Contracts" Corporation: A Critical Appraisal, William W. Bratton
The "Nexus Of Contracts" Corporation: A Critical Appraisal, William W. Bratton
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No abstract provided.