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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Law
Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin
Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin
All Faculty Scholarship
For many years, law and economics scholars, as well as politicians and regulators, have debated whether corporate criminal enforcement overdeters beneficial corporate activity or in the alternative, lets corporate criminals off too easily. This debate has recently expanded in its polarization: On the one hand, academics, judges, and politicians have excoriated enforcement agencies for failing to send guilty bankers to jail in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis; on the other, the U.S. Department of Justice has since relaxed policies that encouraged individual prosecutions and reduced the size of fines and number of prosecutions. A crucial and yet understudied …
Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin
Corporate Crime And Punishment: An Empirical Study, Dorothy S. Lund, Natasha Sarin
Faculty Scholarship
For many years, law and economics scholars, as well as politicians and regulators, have debated whether corporate punishment chills beneficial corporate activity or, in the alternative, lets corporate criminals off too easily. A crucial and yet understudied aspect of this debate is empirical evidence. Unlike most other types of crime, the government does not measure corporate crime rates; therefore, the government and researchers alike cannot easily determine whether disputed policies are effectively deterring future incidents of corporate misconduct. In this Article, we take important first steps in addressing these questions. Specifically, we use three novel sources as proxies for corporate …
M&A Advisor Misconduct: A Wrong Without A Remedy?, Andrew F. Tuch
M&A Advisor Misconduct: A Wrong Without A Remedy?, Andrew F. Tuch
Scholarship@WashULaw
Merger and acquisition ("M&A") transactions are among the most high profile of corporate transactions. They are also among the most contentious, with around eighty percent of all completed deals litigated in recent years. And yet investment banks—essential advisors on these deals—have generally succeeded spectacularly in avoiding liability, an anomaly considering the routine nature of deal litigation and the frequency with which they face lawsuits in their other activities. This article examines this anomaly, explaining the doctrinal and practical reasons why it arises. In doing so, it puts in context aiding and abetting liability, a recently-successful shareholder strategy to bring M&A …
Crafting A Corporate Analogue To Criminal Disenfranchisement, B. Graves Lee Jr.
Crafting A Corporate Analogue To Criminal Disenfranchisement, B. Graves Lee Jr.
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC represented a sea change in the world of corporate citizenship. Although the decision dealt with campaign finance law, it has sparked significant discussion of the concept of corporate personhood more broadly. Corporations have increasingly taken advantage of legal rights previously reserved for individuals. This Note argues that where corporations reap the benefits of constitutional entitlements intended for individuals, they should suffer consequences for malfeasance similar to those imposed on individuals who engage in criminal conduct. Specifically, this Note advocates for limitations on corporate electioneering as a collateral consequence of a …
Overlitigating Corporate Fraud: An Empirical Examination, Jessica M. Erickson
Overlitigating Corporate Fraud: An Empirical Examination, Jessica M. Erickson
Law Faculty Publications
Corporate law leaves no stone unturned when it comes to litigating corporate fraud. The legal system has developed a remarkable array of litigation options shareholder derivative suits, securities class actions, SEC enforcement actions, even criminal prosecutions all aimed at preventing the next corporate scandal. Scholars have long assumed that these different lawsuits offer different avenues for deterring the masterminds of corporate fraud yet this assumption has gone untested in the legal literature. This Article aims to fill that gap through the first empirical examination of the broader world of corporate fraud litigation. Analyzing over 700 lawsuits, the study reveals that …
Confronting The Circularity Problem In Private Securities Litigation, Jill E. Fisch
Confronting The Circularity Problem In Private Securities Litigation, Jill E. Fisch
All Faculty Scholarship
Many critics argue that private securities litigation fails effectively either to deter corporate misconduct or to compensate defrauded investors. In particular, commentators reason that damages reflect socially inefficient transfer payments—the so-called circularity problem. Fox and Mitchell address the circularity problem by identifying new reasons why private litigation is an effective deterrent, focusing on the role of disclosure in improving corporate governance. The corporate governance rationale for securities regulation is more powerful than the authors recognize. By collecting and using corporate information in their trading decisions, informed investors play a critical role in enhancing market efficiency. This efficiency, in turn, allows …
Stoneridge Investment Partners V. Scientific-Atlanta: The Political Economy Of Securities Class Action Reform, Adam C. Pritchard
Stoneridge Investment Partners V. Scientific-Atlanta: The Political Economy Of Securities Class Action Reform, Adam C. Pritchard
Articles
I begin in Part II by explaining the wrong turn that the Court took in Basic. The Basic Court misunderstood the function of the reliance element and its relation to the question of damages. As a result, the securities class action regime established in Basic threatens draconian sanctions with limited deterrent benefit. Part III then summarizes the cases leading up to Stoneridge and analyzes the Court's reasoning in that case. In Stoneridge, like the decisions interpreting the reliance requirement of Rule 10b-5 that came before it, the Court emphasized policy implications. Sometimes policy implications are invoked to broaden the reach …
Rewarding Outside Directors, Assaf Hamdani, Reinier Kraakman
Rewarding Outside Directors, Assaf Hamdani, Reinier Kraakman
Michigan Law Review
While they often rely on the threat of penalties to produce deterrence, legal systems rarely use the promise of rewards. In this Article, we consider the use of rewards to motivate director vigilance. Measures to enhance director liability are commonly perceived to be too costly. We, however demonstrate that properly designed reward regimes could match the behavioral incentives offered by negligence-based liability regimes but with significantly lower costs. We further argue that the market itself cannot implement such a regime in the form of equity compensation for directors. We conclude by providing preliminary sketches of two alternative reward regimes. While …
The Corporate Monitor: The New Corporate Czar?, Vikramaditya Khanna, Timothy L. Dickinson
The Corporate Monitor: The New Corporate Czar?, Vikramaditya Khanna, Timothy L. Dickinson
Michigan Law Review
Following the recent spate of corporate scandals, government enforcement authorities have increasingly relied upon corporate monitors to help ensure law compliance and reduce the number of future violations. These monitors also permit enforcement authorities, such as the Securities & Exchange Commission and others, to leverage their enforcement resources in overseeing corporate behavior. However there are few descriptive or normative analyses of the role and scope of corporate monitors. This paper provides such an analysis. After sketching out the historical development of corporate monitors, the paper examines the most common features of the current set of monitor appointments supplemented by interviews …
Getting The Word Out About Fraud: A Theoretical Analysis Of Whistleblowing And Insider Trading, Jonathan Macey
Getting The Word Out About Fraud: A Theoretical Analysis Of Whistleblowing And Insider Trading, Jonathan Macey
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this Article is to show that corporate whistleblowing is not analytically or functionally distinguishable from insider trading when such trading is based on "whistleblower information," that is, the information a whistleblower might disclose to the authorities. In certain contexts, both insider trading and whistleblowing, if incentivized, would reduce the incidence of corporate pathologies such as fraud and corruption. In light of this analysis, it is peculiar that whistleblowing is encouraged and protected, while insider trading on whistleblower information is not only discouraged but criminalized. Often, insider trading will be far more effective than whistleblowing at bringing fraud …
Panel Discussion: Bigger Carrots And Bigger Sticks: Issues And Developments In Corporate Sentencing, Jill E. Fisch, Hon. John S. Martin, Richard C. Breeden, Timothy Coleman, Stephen M. Cutler, Celeste Koeleveld, Richard H. Walker
Panel Discussion: Bigger Carrots And Bigger Sticks: Issues And Developments In Corporate Sentencing, Jill E. Fisch, Hon. John S. Martin, Richard C. Breeden, Timothy Coleman, Stephen M. Cutler, Celeste Koeleveld, Richard H. Walker
Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law
No abstract provided.
Should Congress Repeal Securities Class Action Reform?, Adam C. Pritchard
Should Congress Repeal Securities Class Action Reform?, Adam C. Pritchard
Other Publications
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 was designed to curtail class action lawsuits by the plaintiffs’ bar. In particular, the high-technology industry, accountants, and investment bankers thought that they had been unjustly victimized by class action lawsuits based on little more than declines in a company’s stock price. Prior to 1995, the plaintiffs’ bar had free rein to use the discovery process to troll for evidence to support its claims. Moreover, the high costs of litigation were a powerful weapon with which to coerce companies to settle claims. The plaintiffs’ bar and its allies in Congress have called …