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Full-Text Articles in Law
Constitutionalizing Class Inequality: Due Process In State Farm, Martha T. Mccluskey
Constitutionalizing Class Inequality: Due Process In State Farm, Martha T. Mccluskey
Buffalo Law Review
This essay takes a step toward building a story of economic class in U.S. constitutional law, as part of a special essay issue of the Buffalo Law Review developed from a series of workshops titled ClassCrits: Toward a Critical Analysis of Economic Inequality, sponsored by the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo. The essay focuses on the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in State Farm Mutual Insurance Co. v. Campbell, one of a series of recent cases using the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to limit punitive damage awards against corporate defendants …
Agency Costs, Charitable Trusts, And Corporate Control: Evidence From Hershey's Kiss-Off, Jonathan Klick, Robert H. Sitkoff
Agency Costs, Charitable Trusts, And Corporate Control: Evidence From Hershey's Kiss-Off, Jonathan Klick, Robert H. Sitkoff
All Faculty Scholarship
In July 2002 the trustees of the Milton Hershey School Trust announced a plan to diversify the Trust’s investment portfolio by selling the Trust’s controlling interest in the Hershey Company. The Company’s stock jumped from $62.50 to $78.30 on news of the proposed sale. But the Pennsylvania Attorney General, who was then running for governor, opposed the sale on the ground that it would harm the local community. Shortly after the Attorney General obtained a preliminary injunction, the trustees abandoned the sale and the Company’s stock dropped to $65.00. Using standard event study methodology, we find that the sale announcement …
Shareholder Democracy On Trial: International Perspective On The Effectiveness Of Increased Shareholder Power, Lisa Fairfax
Shareholder Democracy On Trial: International Perspective On The Effectiveness Of Increased Shareholder Power, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
Shareholder democracy - efforts to increase shareholder power within the corporation - appears to have come of age, both within the United States and abroad. In the past few years, U.S. shareholders have worked to strengthen their voice within the corporation by seeking to remove perceived impediments to their voting authority. These impediments include classified boards, the plurality standard for board elections, and the inability to nominate directors on the corporation's ballot. Shareholders' efforts have also extended to seeking a voice on the compensation of corporate officers and directors. Advocates of shareholder democracy believe that such efforts are critical to …
Christian Anthropology And The Theory Of The Firm, Michael Lp Lower
Christian Anthropology And The Theory Of The Firm, Michael Lp Lower
Michael LP Lower
Catholic social thought (CST), a branch of moral theology, reflects Christian anthropology (an understanding of human nature that draws on Revelation and natural law theory). CST's understanding of what communities (such as the corporation) are for and how they can best achieve their ends are coloured by its anthropological underpinnings. The same, it is argued, is true for economic theories such as the theories of the firm based on Coase. This paper compares Christian anthropology with the implicit anthropology underpinning some of the dominant economic theories of the firm. Differences at this level go a long way to explaining mismatches …
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Is There A Need For A Safe Harbor For Aspirational Codes Of Conduct?, Elizabeth F. Brown
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Is There A Need For A Safe Harbor For Aspirational Codes Of Conduct?, Elizabeth F. Brown
Elizabeth F Brown
Over the years, Congress and some state legislatures have enacted laws to encourage corporations to engage in self-policing by providing them with incentives to adopt codes of conduct and compliance programs. In the case of the Federal Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, Congress offered corporations lower penalties if they were found in violation of a federal law but had adopted codes of conduct and compliance programs to try to comply with the law. In the case of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Congress require public corporations to disclose if they had a code of ethic and if not, why not. Congress assumed that the …
Making The Corporation Safe For Shareholder Democracy, Lisa Fairfax
Making The Corporation Safe For Shareholder Democracy, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
This article considers the effect that increased shareholder activism may have on non-shareholder corporate stakeholders such as employees and consumers. One of the most outspoken proponents of increased shareholder power has argued that such increased power could have negative repercussions for other corporate stakeholders because it would force directors to focus on profits without regard to other interests. This article critically examines that argument. The article acknowledges that increased shareholder power may benefit some stakeholders more than others, and may have some negative consequences. However, this article demonstrates that shareholders not only have interests that align with other stakeholders, but …