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Full-Text Articles in Banking and Finance Law

Testing The Normative Desirability Of The Mediating Hierarch, Zachary J. Gubler Jan 2015

Testing The Normative Desirability Of The Mediating Hierarch, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In their influential article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Professors Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout explained how corporate law might be viewed as an attempt at solving what is known as the team production problem. At its core, this problem has to do with the opportunistic behavior that arises when multiple economic actors make investments—whether of labor, capital, or otherwise—in a business venture where these investments are said to be “firm specific” because they cannot be easily withdrawn and redeployed in other projects. The problem is how to construct a governance regime that will create incentives for the …


Team Production & The Multinational Enterprise, Virginia Harper Ho Jan 2015

Team Production & The Multinational Enterprise, Virginia Harper Ho

Seattle University Law Review

Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout’s path-breaking article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, advances a dual thesis: first, that team production theory does a better job than its competitors (in particular, principal–agent theory) of explaining the advantages of the public corporation and key features of corporate law; and second, that, as a matter of corporate law, corporate boards are charged with advancing the collective interest of all the contributors to the corporate enterprise rather than the shareholders’ interests alone. Its central insight is that the role of the independent, or insulated, corporate board is to serve as a “mediating …


Hostile Takeovers And Overreliance, Anthony Niblett Jan 2015

Hostile Takeovers And Overreliance, Anthony Niblett

Seattle University Law Review

Commentators have argued that employees should be compensated in the event of a hostile takeover; otherwise, the threat of such a takeover will fail to incentivize firm-specific investments by employees. Such deferred compensation is analogous to the payment of damages following a breach of contract. The analogous breach, here, is the breach of an implicit contract between management and employees. Employees trusted management to compensate them for firm-specific investments not explicitly contracted for. This Article uses a familiar result from the contract law literature: There is no measure of damages for breach of contract that can generate both efficient breach …


Buying Teams, Andres Sawicki Jan 2015

Buying Teams, Andres Sawicki

Seattle University Law Review

The Sixth Annual Berle Symposium reflects on Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout’s classic article: A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law. Blair and Stout recast the modern law of public corporations through the lens of the team production theory of the firm. Here, I apply Blair and Stout’s insights—emphasizing the value of team production, independent monitors, and intellectual property rights—to a novel corporate transaction structure: the acqui-hire. In an acqui-hire, a publicly owned technology firm wants to add a start-up’s engineers. Instead of simply hiring them, though, it buys the start-up, discards most of its assets, and retains the start-up’s …


Team Production And Securities Laws, Urska Velikonja Jan 2015

Team Production And Securities Laws, Urska Velikonja

Seattle University Law Review

In the seminal paper that this symposium celebrates, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout made two related points. First, that Delaware law does not require shareholder primacy in public corporations. Rather, the broad deference afforded to the decisions of predominantly independent corporate boards of directors is consistent with a contrary theory, that of team production, or, as they call it, “the mediating hierarch” theory. The fundamental role of the board of directors is to mediate between the interests of various stakeholders that contribute to the corporation’s output. As a result, Delaware courts have repeatedly …


With The Emergence Of Public Benefit Corporations, Directors Of Traditional For-Profit Companies Should Tread Cautiously, But Welcome The Opportunity To Invest In Social Enterprise, Mckenzie Holden Granum Jan 2015

With The Emergence Of Public Benefit Corporations, Directors Of Traditional For-Profit Companies Should Tread Cautiously, But Welcome The Opportunity To Invest In Social Enterprise, Mckenzie Holden Granum

Seattle University Law Review

Social entrepreneurship has become the popular term used to describe business forms that aim to produce profits while also seeking to significantly advance one or more social or environmental goals. In response to an increase in social entrepreneurship across sectors—from progressive industries like organic farming to conservative industries such as insurance and banking—several states have adopted new corporate governance structures. Such legislation allows incorporating businesses to choose an off-the-shelf formation type that embeds a social mission into its legal structure. The bulk of the newly implemented statutory forms provide not only a new framework for social entrepreneurs to work within, …


Shareholder Wealth Maximization As Means To An End, Robert P. Bartlett, Iii Jan 2015

Shareholder Wealth Maximization As Means To An End, Robert P. Bartlett, Iii

Seattle University Law Review

In several recent cases, the Delaware Chancery Court has emphasized that where a conflict of interest exists between holders of a company’s common stock and holders of its preferred stock, the standard of conduct for directors requires that they strive to maximize the value of the corporation for the benefit of its common stockholders rather than for its preferred stockholders. This article interrogates this view of directors’ fiduciary duties from the perspective of incomplete contracting theory. Building on the seminal work of Sanford Grossman and Oliver Hart, incomplete contracting theory examines the critical role of corporate control rights for addressing …


Lobbying, Pandering, And Information In The Firm, Adam B. Badawi Jan 2015

Lobbying, Pandering, And Information In The Firm, Adam B. Badawi

Seattle University Law Review

In their classic and insightful article on team production in corporate law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout identify the minimization of rent-seeking as one of the chief benefits of vesting ultimate authority over a firm with the board of directors. In their analysis, this problematic rent-seeking arises when parties need to divide the gains from production after the fact. The squabbling that is likely to ensue may threaten to eat away most, or all, of the gains that come from productive activity. If parties know that this sort of rent-seeking will occur, they may not engage in productive activity in …


The History Of Team Production Theory, Ron Harris Jan 2015

The History Of Team Production Theory, Ron Harris

Seattle University Law Review

In this short Essay, the author consider the team production theory developed by Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout1 from a historical perspective, in three senses. First, does the theory fit the historical use of the corporate form? Second, can it explain the development of corporation law doctrines? And third, can we place the development of the theory as such into the intellectual history of corporation theories at large? The author will state my bottom line up front: while the Article finds the team production theory insightful and useful for my historical research, for teaching corporation law, and for thinking about …


Choosing The Partnership: English Business Organization Law During The Industrial Revolution, Ryan Bubb Jan 2015

Choosing The Partnership: English Business Organization Law During The Industrial Revolution, Ryan Bubb

Seattle University Law Review

For most of the period associated with the Industrial Revolution in Britain, English law restricted access to incorporation and the Bubble Act explicitly outlawed the formation of unincorporated joint stock companies with transferable shares. Furthermore, firms in the manufacturing industries most closely associated with the Industrial Revolution were overwhelmingly partnerships. These two facts have led some scholars to posit that the antiquated business organization law was a constraint on the structural transformation and growth that characterized the British economy during the period. Importantly, however, the vast majority of manufacturing firms in the modern sector were partnerships. An easy explanation for …


Boards Of Directors As Mediating Hierarchs, Margaret M. Blair Jan 2015

Boards Of Directors As Mediating Hierarchs, Margaret M. Blair

Seattle University Law Review

In June of 2014, the board of directors of Demoulas Supermarkets, Inc.—better known as Market Basket, a mid-sized chain of grocery stores in New England—decided to oust the man who had been CEO for the previous six years, Arthur T. Demoulas. Most likely, the board of directors did not anticipate what happened next: Thousands of employees, customers, and fans of Market Basket boycotted the stores and staged noisy public protests asking the board to reinstate “Arthur T.” The reaction by employees and customers made what had been a simmering, nasty, intrafamily feud within the closely held Market Basket chain into …


The Long Road To Reformulating The Understanding Of Directors' Duties: Legalizing Team Production Theory?, Thomas Clarke Jan 2015

The Long Road To Reformulating The Understanding Of Directors' Duties: Legalizing Team Production Theory?, Thomas Clarke

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, the historical evolution of corporate governance is considered, highlighting the different eras of governance, the dominant theoretical and practical paradigms, and the reformulation of paradigms and counter paradigms. Two alternative and sharply contrasting theorizations, one collective and collaborative (the work of Berle and Means), the other individualistic and contractual (agency theory and shareholder value) are focused upon. The explanatory potential of Blair and Stout’s team production theory is elaborated, along with its conception of the complexity of business enterprise, with a mediating hierarch (the board of directors) securing a balance between the interests of different stakeholders. The …


The Agency Cost Paradigm: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Claire A. Hill, Brett H. Mcdonnell Jan 2015

The Agency Cost Paradigm: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Claire A. Hill, Brett H. Mcdonnell

Seattle University Law Review

In the “managerialist” world that preceded our present shareholder value world, some corporate managers could, and did, help themselves when they should have been doing their jobs. The modern agency cost paradigm has focused attention on this problem, in part by conceptualizing the duty of corporate managers as maximizing shareholder value. This paradigm has had a variety of effects: some good, some bad, and some ugly. The agency cost paradigm has had a good effect by focusing on the problem of managerial enrichment and providing a simple, clear benchmark—shareholder value-- that may quickly indicate when managers are performing badly. However, …


A Theory Of The Just Corporation, Ronit Donyets-Kedar Jan 2015

A Theory Of The Just Corporation, Ronit Donyets-Kedar

Seattle University Law Review

In their seminal article A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout hold that the modern corporation is best understood in terms of team production. Challenging the principal–agent model, Blair and Stout offer an analysis that considers the various stakeholders of the corporation as members of a team. Accordingly, they suggest, the purpose of corporate law is to provide a response to the problems created by collective production processes, in particular those pertaining to the distribution of profits stemming from the cooperation. According to Blair and Stout, the solution to this problem is to be found …


Team Production Theory And Private Company Boards, Elizabeth Pollman Jan 2015

Team Production Theory And Private Company Boards, Elizabeth Pollman

Seattle University Law Review

In their path-breaking article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout provided a new theory of the board of directors in a corporation. Drawing on the economic theory of team production, Blair and Stout argued that the board of directors serves as a mediating hierarchy for the firm as a whole, encouraging firm-specific investments from team members and reducing shirking and opportunistic behavior. While Blair and Stout provided a dramatically different view of the corporation from the conventional principal-agent account, they also delineated limitations to their proposed theory. Most importantly, they suggested that the …


The Corporation As Time Machine: Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Efficiency, And The Corporate Form, Lynn A. Stout Jan 2015

The Corporation As Time Machine: Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Efficiency, And The Corporate Form, Lynn A. Stout

Seattle University Law Review

This Symposium Article argues that the board-controlled corporation can be understood as a legal innovation that historically has functioned as a means of transferring wealth forward and sometimes backward through time, for the benefit of present and future generations. In this fashion the board-controlled corporation promotes both intergenerational equity and intergenerational efficiency. Logic and evidence each suggest, however, that the modern embrace of “shareholder value” as the only corporate objective and “shareholder democracy” as the ideal of corporate governance is damaging the corporate form’s ability to serve this economically and ethically important function.


Litigating Consumer Protection Acts In The Hamp Context, Amanda Martin Jan 2015

Litigating Consumer Protection Acts In The Hamp Context, Amanda Martin

Seattle University Law Review

The foreclosure crisis has lingered despite the improving economy. To alleviate this crisis, the U.S. government implemented the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP), a Treasury-sponsored initiative that aims to prevent foreclosure by encouraging mortgage loan servicers to modify the mortgages of qualified homeowners. The Treasury Department has extended HAMP multiple times—from its original ending date in 2013 to its present ending date in 2016. While HAMP has indeed helped homeowners avoid foreclosure, the program has spawned an array of litigation as servicer misconduct runs rampant. As the Ninth Circuit recently noted, “the [HAMP] program seems to have created more litigation …


Copyright, Consumerism, And The Cloud: Proposing Standards-Essential Technology To Support First Sale In Digital Copyright, Marco Puccia Jan 2015

Copyright, Consumerism, And The Cloud: Proposing Standards-Essential Technology To Support First Sale In Digital Copyright, Marco Puccia

Seattle University Law Review

America’s entertainment industry, and the creative talent that drives it, is a national treasure. Equally valuable, however, is America’s drive and commitment toward technological innovation. These two sectors have been in tension since at least 1908, when the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to determine whether the makers of piano rolls for automatically playing pianos had to pay royalties to the composers. Since that time, the entertainment industry has continued to use copyright law to resist advances in technological innovation that it views as a threat to its existing business models. This Note seeks to provide the necessary context and …


Law's Acceleration Of Finance: Redefining The Problem Of High-Frequency Trading, Frank A. Pasquale Jan 2015

Law's Acceleration Of Finance: Redefining The Problem Of High-Frequency Trading, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

High-frequency traders automate stock trading, placing thousands of orders over fractions of a second. Their algorithmic strategies are all too often mere rule manipulation or methods of using brute speed to gain advantages over rivals. Normative evaluation of finance’s algorithms must take into account the sector’s social function: to spur efficient, fair, and sustainable investment practices. The complex modeling deployed in high-frequency trading does not reliably contribute to these goals. Therefore, rather than straining to accommodate high-frequency trading strategies, regulators should eliminate many of them.


The New Global Financial Regulatory Order: Can Macroprudential Regulation Prevent Another Global Financial Disaster?, Behzad Gohari, Karen E. Woody Jan 2015

The New Global Financial Regulatory Order: Can Macroprudential Regulation Prevent Another Global Financial Disaster?, Behzad Gohari, Karen E. Woody

Scholarly Articles

This Article posits that the success of macroprudential regulation will depend on four factors. First, the economic philosophy of the central banker in charge of the domestic institution with jurisdiction over macroprudential regulation will prove crucial in the implementation of adopted regulation. If, like Chairman Greenspan, the banker is averse to the exercise of the Central Bank's regulatory oversight authority, then no amount or volume of policy or regulation will prevent or mitigate systemic risks and the accompanying shocks. Second, a sufficiently deep level of international cooperation is required to mitigate regulatory arbitrage, without being so broad that the ensuing …


The Extraterritorial Reach Of United States Securities Actions After Morrison V. National Australian Bank, Nathan Lee Jan 2015

The Extraterritorial Reach Of United States Securities Actions After Morrison V. National Australian Bank, Nathan Lee

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.


Corporate Governance In Search Of The Shareholder-Manager Balance Of Power, Razeen Sappideen Jan 2015

Corporate Governance In Search Of The Shareholder-Manager Balance Of Power, Razeen Sappideen

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.


Privileged Access To Financial Innovation, Cary Martin Shelby Jan 2015

Privileged Access To Financial Innovation, Cary Martin Shelby

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Access to private funds is limited to an elite class of investors—wealthy individuals and large institutions. Individuals of more modest means—“retail investors”—face more limited investment choices; generally they can only invest in mutual funds. Despite this inequitable division, the current regulatory climate will lead to an even further expansion of the private fund industry. This Article argues that this loosening regulatory climate could lead to a talent drain amongst registered funds, could narrow the investment choices available to retail investors, and could deepen the already troubling income gap between wealthy and average earners. With respect to a possible talent drain, …


Sac Capital: Firm Criminal Liability, Civil Fines, And The Insulated Ceo, Frances E. Chapman, Marianne Jennings, Lauren Tarasuk Jan 2015

Sac Capital: Firm Criminal Liability, Civil Fines, And The Insulated Ceo, Frances E. Chapman, Marianne Jennings, Lauren Tarasuk

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.


Disaggregated Classes, Benjamin P. Edwards Jan 2015

Disaggregated Classes, Benjamin P. Edwards

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Pause And Harmonize: Issues On The Dodd-Frank Act And Its Cross-Border Applications, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 89 (2015), Yankun Guo Jan 2015

Pause And Harmonize: Issues On The Dodd-Frank Act And Its Cross-Border Applications, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 89 (2015), Yankun Guo

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The 2008 financial crisis was a rude awakening for global financial regulators. The lack of transparency and regulation of the derivatives market was a major contributing factor to the global economic recession. As a response, world leaders pledged to bring economic and regulatory reform to their respective nations. In order to meet these goals, the United States proposed the Dodd-Frank Act and, in 2010, the Act was signed into law by President Obama. One of the purposes of Dodd-Frank is to allow financial regulators to police all derivative contracts that may affect the United States; unfortunately, the extraterritorial reach of …


Municipal Bondage: The Undisclosed Disclosure Obligations On Municipal Securities Issuers, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 111 (2015), Claymore Hardman Jan 2015

Municipal Bondage: The Undisclosed Disclosure Obligations On Municipal Securities Issuers, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 111 (2015), Claymore Hardman

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The municipal securities market has recently become the target of increased regulatory scrutiny. Once considered a “sleepy market,” the market is now burdened by new regulations, increased oversight, and heightened enforcement, which place direct disclosure obligations on municipal securities issuers. As such, the clear provisions of the 1975 Tower Amendment, which limit regulation of the municipal securities market to anti-fraud actions, have been cut off at all corners. This Article examines the fundamental discord between regulating the municipal securities market with the same structure and intensity as the corporate securities market. This Article proposes limiting the reach of federal regulatory …


Charting A New Revolution In Equity Crowdfunding: The Rise Of State Crowdfunding Regimes In Response To The Inadequacy Of Title Iii Of The Jobs Act, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 135 (2015), Christopher Douglas Mitchell Jan 2015

Charting A New Revolution In Equity Crowdfunding: The Rise Of State Crowdfunding Regimes In Response To The Inadequacy Of Title Iii Of The Jobs Act, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 135 (2015), Christopher Douglas Mitchell

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

States, through the recent implementation of intrastate crowdfunding exemptions, have become significant players in the creation of an equity crowdfunding industry in the United States. Crowdfunding is an alternative capital-raising source for businesses and entrepreneurs, where investing and capital-raising takes place through solicitations of small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. While the federal crowdfunding provisions in Title III of the federal Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”) have received much publicity, states are taking a leading role in enacting equity crowdfunding laws. State-enacted intrastate crowdfunding laws authorize securities offerings by residents …


National Company Disclosure Regulatory Frameworks: Superficially Similar But Substantively Different, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 187 (2015), Gill North Jan 2015

National Company Disclosure Regulatory Frameworks: Superficially Similar But Substantively Different, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 187 (2015), Gill North

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The United States has led the world for many decades with regard to company disclosure rules and standards; other national company disclosure structures are based largely on the U.S. model. In December 2013 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) indicated that it intended to review Regulation S-K, which contains many important rules governing listed company reporting in the United States. This Article calls for the SEC to maintain its comprehensive approach to corporate disclosure regulation and practice as an essential platform for the future health of global financial markets. This Article highlights the importance of the global leadership …


Mission Impracticable: The Impossibility Of Commercial Impracticability, Jennifer Camero Jan 2015

Mission Impracticable: The Impossibility Of Commercial Impracticability, Jennifer Camero

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Residents of Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood certainly cannot forget the recent financial crisis thanks to a gaping hole in their midst. That hole is to be the home of the Spire, the tallest building in the Northern Hemisphere, at 2,000 feet high with 1,194 residences ranging in price from $750,000 for a studio to $40 million for the penthouse. The developer, Shelbourne Development Group, Inc., began construction in 2007 using its own funds. It also obtained “starter” funds from Bank of America via a loan agreement that required Shelbourne to demonstrate proof of a construction loan by November 1, 2008. …