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2014

Corporate law

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Articles 1 - 21 of 21

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Short Road Home To Delaware: Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund V. Chevron, Anne M. Tucker Nov 2014

The Short Road Home To Delaware: Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund V. Chevron, Anne M. Tucker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

One of the biggest Delaware Supreme Court cases of 2013 wasn’t. The Delaware Court of Chancery opinion in Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund v. Chevron Corp., upheld the enforceability of Delaware forum selection clause bylaws unilaterally adopted by corporate boards of directors. It was widely expected that the Delaware Supreme Court would uphold the Court of Chancery’s opinion. However, Plaintiffs dismissed their appeal and moved to dismiss their remaining claims in the Court of Chancery, leaving intact Chancellor Strine’s strong support of forum selection clauses. National Industries Group (Holding) v. Carlyle Investment Managements L.L.C. and TC Group, L.L.C., a 2013 …


Unanimous Shareholder Agreements, Nicolas William Juzda Nov 2014

Unanimous Shareholder Agreements, Nicolas William Juzda

PhD Dissertations

The unanimous shareholder agreement is a feature of most Canadian corporate statutes that allows the shareholders to, by creating an agreement meeting the necessary criteria, restrict the powers of the directors to manage the business and affairs of the corporation. One possible justification for this is the "nexus of contracts" theory that all corporations are notionally reducible to voluntary agreements. Three key areas of ambiguity surrounding unanimous shareholder agreements are examined in this dissertation, with specific reference to existing judgments. The requirements for their formation are reviewed, including the exact meaning and strictness of the unanimity criterion and the necessity …


Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman Nov 2014

Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

In late August 2014, after suffering a defeat in the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision when the Court held that business corporations are “persons” that can “exercise religion,” the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) proposed new rules defining “eligible organizations.” Purportedly designed to accommodate the Hobby Lobby ruling, the proposed rules do not comport with the reasoning of that important decision and they unjustifiably seek to permit only a small group of business corporations to be exempt from providing contraceptive coverage on religious grounds. This comment letter to the HHS about its proposed rules makes several theoretical and …


Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman Nov 2014

Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman

David K. Millon

In late August 2014, after suffering a defeat in the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision when the Court held that business corporations are “persons” that can “exercise religion,” the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) proposed new rules defining “eligible organizations.” Purportedly designed to accommodate the Hobby Lobby ruling, the proposed rules do not comport with the reasoning of that important decision and they unjustifiably seek to permit only a small group of business corporations to be exempt from providing contraceptive coverage on religious grounds. This comment letter to the HHS about its proposed rules makes several theoretical and …


Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman Oct 2014

Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman

Scholarly Articles

In late August 2014, after suffering a defeat in the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision when the Court held that business corporations are “persons” that can “exercise religion,” the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) proposed new rules defining “eligible organizations.” Purportedly designed to accommodate the Hobby Lobby ruling, the proposed rules do not comport with the reasoning of that important decision and they unjustifiably seek to permit only a small group of business corporations to be exempt from providing contraceptive coverage on religious grounds. This comment letter to the HHS about its proposed rules makes several theoretical and …


Downstream Securities Regulation, Anita Krug Oct 2014

Downstream Securities Regulation, Anita Krug

All Faculty Scholarship

Securities regulation wears two hats. Its “upstream” side governs firms in connection with their obtaining financing in the securities markets. That is, it regulates firms’ and issuers’ offers and sales of securities, whether in public offerings to retail investors or in private offerings to institutional investors. Its “downstream” side, by contrast, governs financial services providers, who assist with investors’ activities in those markets. Their services include providing advice regarding securities investments, as investment advisers do; aggregating investors’ assets for purposes of enabling those investors to invest their assets collectively, as mutual funds do; and acting as “middlemen” between buyers and …


Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman Jul 2014

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Since 1978, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. The NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership organization created by and for corporate directors. …


Cash Of The Titans: Arbitrating Challenges To Executive Compensation, Kenneth Davis Mar 2014

Cash Of The Titans: Arbitrating Challenges To Executive Compensation, Kenneth Davis

Kenneth R. Davis

Excessive executive compensation is endemic to U.S. corporations, and the trend is spiraling out of control. To challenge excessive pay packages, shareholders sometimes institute derivative suits. This approach has had limited success, however, because several principles of law – most notably the business judgment rule – shield directors from liability for awarding exorbitant pay to high-level managers. The business judgment rule removes the unreasonableness of compensation packages from the reach of judicial review. This Article proposes that corporations duly approve procedures to arbitrate shareholder challenges to excessive compensation agreements. Arbitration is uniquely suited for this purpose. Arbitrators are not bound …


Justice Deferred Is Justice Denied: We Must End Our Failed Experiment In Deferring Corporate Criminal Prosecutions, Peter Reilly Mar 2014

Justice Deferred Is Justice Denied: We Must End Our Failed Experiment In Deferring Corporate Criminal Prosecutions, Peter Reilly

Faculty Scholarship

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), deferred prosecution agreements are said to occupy an “important middle ground” between declining to prosecute on the one hand, and trials or guilty pleas on the other. A top DOJ official has declared that, over the last decade, the agreements have become a “mainstay” of white collar criminal law enforcement; a prominent criminal law professor calls their increased use part of the “biggest change in corporate law enforcement policy in the last ten years.”

However, despite deferred prosecution’s apparent rise in popularity among law enforcement officials, the article sets forth the argument …


Secret Arbitration Or Civil Litigation?: An Analysis Of The Delaware Arbitration Program, Jores Kharatian Jan 2014

Secret Arbitration Or Civil Litigation?: An Analysis Of The Delaware Arbitration Program, Jores Kharatian

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.


The Delaware Arbitration Experiment: Not Just A “Secret Court”, Jessica Tyndall Jan 2014

The Delaware Arbitration Experiment: Not Just A “Secret Court”, Jessica Tyndall

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.


Delaware's Closed Door Arbitration: What The Future Holds For Large Business Disputes And How It Will Affect M&A Deals, Myron T. Steele, Thomas J. Stipanowich, Robert Anderson, James R. Griffin, Katherine Blair, Monica Shilling Jan 2014

Delaware's Closed Door Arbitration: What The Future Holds For Large Business Disputes And How It Will Affect M&A Deals, Myron T. Steele, Thomas J. Stipanowich, Robert Anderson, James R. Griffin, Katherine Blair, Monica Shilling

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.


In Quest Of The Arbitration Trifecta, Or Closed Door Litigation?: The Delaware Arbitration Program , Thomas J. Stipanowich Jan 2014

In Quest Of The Arbitration Trifecta, Or Closed Door Litigation?: The Delaware Arbitration Program , Thomas J. Stipanowich

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The Delaware Arbitration Program established a procedure by which businesses can agree to have their disputes heard in an arbitration proceeding before a sitting judge of the state’s highly regarded Chancery Court. The Program arguably offers a veritable trifecta of procedural advantages for commercial parties, including expert adjudication, efficient case management and short cycle time and, above all, a proceeding cloaked in secrecy. It also may enhance the reputation of Delaware as the forum of choice for businesses. But the Program’s ambitious intermingling of public and private forums brings into play the longstanding tug-of-war between the traditional view of court …


A Court For The One Percent: How The Supreme Court Contributes To Economic Inequality, Michele E. Gilman Jan 2014

A Court For The One Percent: How The Supreme Court Contributes To Economic Inequality, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the United States Supreme Court’s role in furthering economic inequality. The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 not only highlighted growing income and wealth inequality in the United States, but also pointed the blame at governmental policies that favor business interests and the wealthy due to their outsized influence on politicians. Numerous economists and political scientists agree with this thesis. However, in focusing ire on the political branches and big business, these critiques have largely overlooked the role of the judiciary in fostering economic inequality. The Court’s doctrine touches each of the major causes of economic inequality, …


Shareholder Voting In An Age Of Intermediary Capitalism, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas, Robert B. Thompson Jan 2014

Shareholder Voting In An Age Of Intermediary Capitalism, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas, Robert B. Thompson

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Shareholder voting is a key part of contemporary American corporate governance. As numerous contemporary battles between corporate management and shareholders illustrate, voting has never been more important. Yet, traditional theory about shareholder voting, rooted in concepts of residual ownership and a principal/agent relationship, does not reflect recent fundamental changes as to who shareholders are and their incentives to vote (or not vote). In the first section of the article, we address this deficiency directly by developing a new theory of corporate voting that offers three strong and complementary reasons for shareholder voting. In the middle section, we apply our theory …


The Prudential Third Party Standing Of Family-Owned Corporations, Matthew I. Hall, Benjamin Means Jan 2014

The Prudential Third Party Standing Of Family-Owned Corporations, Matthew I. Hall, Benjamin Means

Scholarly Works

On November 26, 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether for-profit corporations or their shareholders have standing to challenge federal regulations that implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). At issue in the two cases consolidated for appeal, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, are regulations mandating that employers with fifty or more employees offer health insurance that includes coverage for all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The plaintiffs assert that providing certain types of contraceptive care would be contrary to their religious beliefs and allege, therefore, that the mandate violates the Religious …


A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance, Carol Liao Jan 2014

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

What is Canada’s actual legal model to govern its corporations? Recent landmark judicial decisions indicate Canada is shifting away from an Anglo-American definition of shareholder primacy. Yet the Canadian securities commissions have become increasingly influential in the governance sphere, and by nature are shareholder-focused. Shareholders’ rights have increased well beyond what was ever contemplated by Canadian corporate laws, and the issue of greater shareholder vs. board control has now become the topic of live debate. The future of Canada's overall model seems to rest on what will be more compelling: the constancy of the corporate statutes and trajectory of the …


The Future Of General Jurisdiction: The Effects Of Daimler Ag V. Bauman, Stephanie Denker Jan 2014

The Future Of General Jurisdiction: The Effects Of Daimler Ag V. Bauman, Stephanie Denker

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The Due Process Clause requires a court to have jurisdiction over a lawsuit before binding the parties to its judgment. However, before 2014, the Supreme Court had not addressed whether a court could impute a subsidiary's contacts to its parent corporation for jurisdictional purposes. Because of this oversight, the Courts of Appeals split over how to impute a subsidiary's contacts. Some courts apply the agency test, while other courts apply variations of the alter ego test. As a result, courts inconsistently asserted jurisdiction over multinational corporations, leading plaintiffs to forum shop and corporations to speculate which forums might assert jurisdiction …


Delaware Law As Lingua Franca: Theory And Evidence, Brian Broughman, Jesse Fried, Darian Ibrahim Jan 2014

Delaware Law As Lingua Franca: Theory And Evidence, Brian Broughman, Jesse Fried, Darian Ibrahim

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Why would a firm incorporate in Delaware rather than in its home state? Prior explanations have focused on the inherent features of Delaware corporate law, as well as the positive network externalities created by so many other firms domiciling in Delaware. We offer an additional explanation: a firm may choose Delaware simply because its law is nationally known and thus can serve as a “lingua franca” for in-state and out-of-state investors. Analyzing the incorporation decisions of 1,850 VC-backed startups, we find evidence consistent with this lingua-franca explanation. Indeed, the lingua-franca effect appears to be more important than other factors that …


A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance: Where Do Shareholders Really Stand?, Carol Liao Jan 2014

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance: Where Do Shareholders Really Stand?, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

This feature article in the Director Journal summarizes the findings from the report, "A Canadian Model of Corporate Governance: Insights from Canada's Leading Legal Practitioners," produced for the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research and the Institute of Corporate Directors (also available on SSRN).

In the report, interviews were conducted with 32 leading senior legal practitioners across Canada to opine on the fundamental principles that are driving the development of Canadian corporate governance. The report found that Canadian common law has made the process of considering stakeholders in the "best interests of the corporation" more overt, well beyond what is assumed …


Director Nominations, Lawrence Hamermesh Dec 2013

Director Nominations, Lawrence Hamermesh

Lawrence A. Hamermesh

“I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.” William M. (“Boss”) Tweed. Shareholder election of directors is widely accepted as an important tool in corporate governance. As Boss Tweed’s aphorism demonstrates, the shareholder’s ability to nominate director candidates should therefore also be deemed important. With ever-increasing shareholder activism and increased sensitivity on the part of management to the prospect of director election contests, the scope of the right to nominate and the scope of permissible limitations of that right are likely to come under increasing scrutiny. Yet corporate statutes are largely silent …