Law Commons^™

Obama's International Tax Plan: A Major Step Forward, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

President Barack Obama last week personally introduced a set of proposals to reform U.S. international taxation that are the most significant advance toward preserving the income tax on cross-border transactions since the enactment of the subpart F rules by the Kennedy administration in 1962. (For prior coverage, see Doc 2009-10047 or 2009 TNT 84-1.) In essence, the Obama proposals introduce a 21stcentury version of the vision begun by Thomas Adams in 1918 and continued by Stanley Surrey in 1961: a world in which source and residence taxation are coordinated so as to achieve the underlying goals of the international tax …

London As Delaware?, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Jurisdictional competition in corporate law has long been a staple of academic-and sometimes, political-debate in the United States. State corporate law, by long-standing tradition in the United States, determines most questions of internal corporate governance-the role of boards of directors, the allocation of authority between directors, managers and shareholders, etc.-while federal law governs questions of disclosure to shareholders-annual reports, proxy statements, and periodic filings. Despite substantial incursions by Congress, most recently in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, this dividing line between state and federal law persists, so state law arguably has the most immediate impact on corporate governance outcomes.

Race To The Left: A Legislator’S Guide To Greening A Corporate Code, Judd F. Sneirson

Articles

American corporate law tolerates green businesses. Green business decisions that are informed, disinterested, and made in the good-faith best interests of the firm will enjoy deference pursuant to the business judgment rule, whether the decisions maximize shareholder profits or sacrifice them in the name of sustainability. Corporate law generally stops there, however, and neither encourages green business efforts nor particularly discourages them.

States are more or less uniform in this approach, and thus new businesses selecting a state of incorporation have had no green basis for preferring one state’s corporate laws to those of another. Recent efforts in Oregon to …

Selected Issues Relating To The Cisg's Scope Of Application, Harry Flechtner

Articles

This paper addresses two issues concerning the scope of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (“CISG”), both of which have arisen in recent decisions applying the Convention: 1) whether requirements imposed by U.S. domestic sales law on attempts to disclaim implied warranties apply to attempts to derogate from the seller‘s obligations under Arts. 35(2)(a) & (b) CISG; and 2) whether burden of proof questions that are not expressly addressed in the CISG are governed by the general principles of the CISG. The paper defends the use of the distinction between substantive and procedural law …

Translating Unocal: The Expanding Web Of Liability For Business Entities Implicated In International Crimes, Anita Ramasastry, Robert C. Thompson, Mark B. Taylor

Articles

The Ninth Circuit ruled that a corporation could be held liable under the federal Alien Tort Claims Act for its complicity in a violation of international criminal law occurring outside the U.S. (Doe I v. Unocal Corp., 395 F.3d 932 (9th Cir. 2002)). Since then, litigants have filed increasing numbers of such cases. These cases raise two questions: (1) Is the United States the only country that provides judicial accountability for business entities involved in international crimes abroad? and (2) How are other countries "translating" the basic kinds of accountability that Unocal recognized into their own legal systems? This Article …

Domestic Effects Of The Foreign Activities Of U.S. Multinationals, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

Do firms investing abroad simultaneously reduce their domestic activity? This paper analyzes the relationship between the domestic and foreign operations of US manufacturing firms between 1982 and 2004 by instrumenting for changes in foreign operations with GDP growth rates of the foreign countries in which they invest. Estimates produced using this instrument indicate that 10 percent greater foreign investment is associated with 2.6 percent greater domestic investment, and 10 percent greater foreign employee compensation is associated with 3.7 percent greater domestic employee compensation. These results do not support the popular notion that expansions abroad reduce a firm’s domestic activity, instead …

Monitoring Of Corporate Groups By Independent Directors, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Both the United States and Korea have reformed their corporate governance in recent years to put increasing responsibilities on independent directors. Independent directors have been found to be an important force protecting the interests of shareholders when it comes time to make certain highly salient decisions, such as firing a CEO or selling the company. This article compares the role of independent directors in the US and Korean systems. I argue that the US may have placed regulatory burdens on independent directors that they are unlikely to be able to satisfy, given their part-time status. By contrast, in the chaebol …

When 'Good' Corporate Governance Makes 'Bad' (Financial) Firms: The Global Crisis And The Limits Of Private Law, Nicholas C. Howson

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In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, investors, analysts, legislators, and pundits have spotlighted “good” or “improved” corporate governance as a remedy for all that presently ails us. It is one remedy in a long wish list that includes tougher requirements for risk capital, liquidity, and leverage; compensation and bonus reform; reimposition ofthe Glass-Steagall-like separation of bank “utility” and “casino” functions; the downsizing or breakup of institutions deemed “too big to fail;” enhanced consumer protection; securities law liability for secondary violators (like credit rating agencies); direct taxation of proprietary trading; “macroprudential” regulation; and new transparency requirements for …

London As Delaware?, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

In the United States, state corporate law determines most questions of internal corporate governance - the role of directors; the allocation of authority between directors, managers, and shareholders; etc. - while federal law governs questions of disclosure to shareholders - annual reports, proxy statements, and periodic filings. Despite substantial incursions by Congress, most recently with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, this dividing line between state and federal law persists, so state law arguably has the most immediate effect on corporate governance outcomes.

Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst

Articles

The current system of taxing the income of multinational firms in the United States is flawed across multiple dimensions. The system provides an artificial tax incentive to earn income in low-tax countries, rewards aggressive tax planning, and is not compatible with any common metrics of efficiency. The U.S. system is also notoriously complex; observers are nearly unanimous in lamenting the heavy compliance burdens and the impracticality of coherent enforcement. Further, despite a corporate tax rate one standard deviation above that of other OECD countries, the U.S. corporate tax system raises relatively little revenue, due in part to the shifting of …

Environmental Crime Comes Of Age: The Evolution Of Criminal Enforcement In The Environmental Regulatory Scheme, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 often is considered the first environmental criminal statute because it contains strict liability provisions that make it a misdemeanor to discharge refuse into navigable waters of the United States without a permit. When Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Act, however, it was far more concerned with preventing interference with interstate commerce than environmental protection. For practical purposes, the environmental crimes program in the United States dates to the development of the modem environmental regulatory system during the 1970s, and amendments to the environmental laws during the 1980s, which upgraded criminal violations of …