Law Commons^™

How Corporate Governance Is Made: The Case Of The Golden Leash, Matthew D. Cain, Jill E. Fisch, Sean J. Griffith, Steven Davidoff Solomon

Steven Davidoff Solomon

This Article presents a case study of a corporate governance innovation—the incentive compensation arrangement for activist-nominated director candidates colloquially known as the “golden leash.” Golden leash compensation arrangements are a potentially valuable tool for activist shareholders in election contests. In response to their use, several issuers adopted bylaw provisions banning incentive compensation arrangements. Investors, in turn, viewed director adoption of golden leash bylaws as problematic and successfully pressured issuers to repeal them. The study demonstrates how corporate governance provisions are developed and deployed, the sequential response of issuers and investors, and the central role played by governance intermediaries—activist investors, institutional …

Social Enterprise, Law & Legal Education, Lorne Sossin, Devon Kapoor

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the relationship between law and social enterprise. More specifically, it explores ways in which the law and the law school can serve to refine and promote the development of social enterprise. The article begins by canvassing the existing conceptions of social enterprise to provide a basis for understanding and to identify points of access for legal intervention. At the end of this analysis, we arrive at a working definition of social enterprise: A legal entity engaged in socially responsible economic activity for the purpose of generating revenue that is to be used to advance a social mission. …

Cross Border Public Offering Of Securities In Fostering An Integrated Asean Securities Market: The Experiences Of Singapore, Malaysia And Thailand, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In 2015, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community was formally established and its aim was to achieve, among other things, an integrated securities market within ASEAN.

Before the formal establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community, in 2009, with a view towards achieving the objective of securities integration, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand adopted the ASEAN Disclosure Standards, a set of harmonized disclosure standards for issuers making cross-border initial public offerings (IPOs). These participating Member States also entered into a framework for the expedited review for cross-listings. However, more than 5 years later, there is no documented use of …

Coordination And Monitoring In Changes Of Control: The Controversial Role Of “Wolf Packs” In Capital Markets, Anita Anand, Andrew Mihalik

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Given recent empirical work suggesting that Canada is one of two countries in which outcomes favourable to shareholder activists are more likely than in the United States, one might wonder whether shareholders in Canadian public companies have become too empowered. This concern takes on particular significance in light of controversies arising from the emergence of “wolf packs”: loose networks of parallel-minded shareholders (typically hedge funds) that act together to effect change in a given corporation without disclosing their collective interest. This article analogizes the role of wolf packs in the corporation to that of a blockholder. It isolates certain conditions …

Lyman Johnson’S Invaluable Contribution To Delaware Corporate Jurisprudence, Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Jack B. Jacobs

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Social Enterprise And Hybrid Organizations, Ofer Eldar

Faculty Scholarship

Recent years have brought remarkable growth in hybrid organizations that combine profit-seeking and social missions. Despite popular enthusiasm for such organizations, legal reforms to facilitate their formation and growth—particularly, legal forms for hybrid firms—have largely been ineffective. This shortcoming stems in large part from the lack of a theory that identifies the structural and functional elements that make some types of hybrid organizations more effective than others. In pursuit of such a theory, this Article focuses on a large class of hybrid organizations that has been effective in addressing development problems, such as increasing access to capital and improving employment …

Corporate Officers As Agents, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

Although officers are crucial to corporate operations, scholarly and theoretical accounts tend to slight officers and amalgamate them with directors into a single category, "managers." This essay anchors officers within the common law of agency-as does black-letter law-which crisply differentiates officers from directors. Understanding that agency is central of the legal account of officers' positions and responsibilities is crucial to seeing why, like directors, officers are fiduciaries, but distinctively so, not as instances of generic "corporate fiduciaries." Officers, like directors, owe duties of loyalty, but also particularized duties of care, competence, and diligence. Additionally, officers' duties of performance encompass two …

Constraining Monitors, Veronica Root

Faculty Scholarship

Monitors oversee remediation efforts at dozens, if not hundreds, of institutions that are guilty of misconduct. The remediation efforts that the monitors of today engage in are, in many instances, quite similar to activities that were once subject to formal court oversight. But as the importance and power of monitors has increased, the court’s oversight of monitors and the agreements that most often result in monitorships has, at best, been severely diminished and, at worst, vanished altogether. Additionally, statutory efforts to provide formal guidance and restrictions on monitorships have stalled and published bar guidance has taken a nonbinding advisory form. …

Regulatory Competition And The Market For Corporate Law, Ofer Eldar, Lorenzo Magnolfi

Faculty Scholarship

This article develops an empirical model of firms’ choice of corporate laws under inertia. Delaware dominates the incorporation market, though recently Nevada, a state whose laws are highly protective of managers, has acquired a sizable market share. Using a novel database of incorporation decisions from 1995- 2013, we show that most firms dislike protectionist laws, such as anti-takeover statutes and liability protections for officers, and that Nevada’s rise is due to the preferences of small firms.Our estimates indicate that despite inertia, Delaware would lose significant market share and revenues if it adopted protectionist laws. Our findings support the hypothesis that …

The Bylaw Puzzle In Delaware Corporate Law, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

In less than a decade, Delaware’s legislature has overruled its courts and reshaped Delaware corporate law on two different occasions, with proxy access bylaws in 2009 and with shareholder litigation bylaws in 2015. Having two dramatic interventions in quick succession would be puzzling under any circumstances. The interventions are doubly puzzling because with proxy access, Delaware’s legislature authorized the use of bylaws or charter provisions that Delaware’s courts had banned; while with shareholder litigation, it banned bylaws or charter provisions that the courts had authorized. This Article attempts to unravel the puzzle.

I start with corporate law doctrine, and find …

Market Information And The Elite Law Firm, Elisabeth De Fontenay

Faculty Scholarship

As a subcategory of contract negotiations, corporate transactions present information problems that have not been fully analyzed. In particular, the literature does not address the possibility that parties may simply be unaware of value-increasing transaction terms or their outside option. Such unawareness can arise even for transactions that attract many competing parties, if the bargaining process is such that (1) the price terms are negotiated and fixed prior to the non-price terms, contrary to the standard assumption; and (2) some of the non-price terms remain private for some period of time.

A simple bargaining model shows that, when such unawareness …

The Separation Of Corporate Law And Social Welfare, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

A half century ago, corporate legal theory pursued an institutional vision in which corporations and the law that creates them protect people from the ravages of volatile free markets. That vision was challenged on the ground during the 1980s, when corporate legal institutions and market forces came to blows over questions concerning hostile takeovers. By 1990, it seemed like the institutions had won. But a different picture has emerged as the years have gone by. It is now clear that the market side really won the battle of the 1980s, succeeding in entering a wedge between corporate law and social …

Brief Of Professors At Law And Business Schools As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Respondents, James D. Cox, J. Robert Brown Jr., Lyman Johnson, Lawrence W. Treece, Joan Macleod Heminway

Faculty Scholarship

This Amicus Brief was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of nearly 50 law and business faculty in the United States and Canada who have a common interest in ensuring a proper interpretation of the statutory securities regulation framework put in place by the U.S. Congress. Specifically, all amici agree that Item 303 of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation S-K creates a duty to disclose for purposes of Rule 10b-5(b) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The Court’s affirmation of a duty to disclose would have little effect on existing practice. Under the current state of …