Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Reorganizations, Sales, And The Changing Face Of Restructuring In Canada: Quantitative Outcomes Of 2012 And 2013 Ccaa Proceedings, Alfonso Nocilla

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines quantitative data on the outcomes of proceedings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), Canada’s principal statute for resolving large, complex corporate insolvencies. In particular, this article compares the durations, direct costs, and returns to different classes of creditors generated by traditional reorganizations under the CCAA and by “liquidating CCAAs”—that is, proceedings in which the insolvent debtor sells substantially all of its assets rather than reorganizing itself. The article makes a number of contributions to the existing scholarship. Firstly, quantitative data on CCAA proceedings are rare. The data examined here, collected by the author from proceedings initiated …

Understanding The (Ir)Relevance Of Shareholder Votes On M&A Deals, Randall S. Thomas, James D. Cox, Tomas J. Mondino

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Has corporate law and its bundles of fiduciary obligations become irrelevant? Over the last thirty years, the American public corporation has undergone a profound metamorphosis, transforming itself from a business with dispersed ownership to one whose ownership is highly concentrated in the hands of sophisticated financial institutions. Corporate law has not been immutable to these changes so that current doctrine now accords to a shareholder vote two effects: first, the vote satisfies a statutory mandate that shareholders approve a deal, and second and significantly, the vote insulates the transaction and its actors from any claim of misconduct incident the approved …

Introduction, Kim Brooks, Kim Brooks

Dalhousie Law Journal

At Schulich, we see business law in a broad frame and understand that business law and policy includes the role of businesses in environmental protection, sustainable investing, inter-nation equity, and access to justice. We understand that businesses operate in broad social, economic, and political contexts, and as a community of scholars we care about the interactions of business law and policy with technology, governance and stakeholder rights, and economic, social and environmental justice. We hope that this collection advances vital scholarly and policy conversations.

Evaluating Canadian Tax Remission Orders: A Debt Relief Vehicle For Taxpayers, Samuel Singer

Dalhousie Law Journal

Tax remission orders, although rare, serve important functions in the Canadian tax system. This paper draws from a comprehensive study of federal tax remission orders issued between 1998 and 2017. It presents general findings about remission orders in that time period, including remission order applications, their reported costs, and the number of remission orders issued. The paper identifies the five most common categories of reasons cited for granting remission orders. It then applies tax policy analysis to assess the two most frequent reasons for grating remission orders: to provide debt relief for financial hardship and/or extenuating circumstances, and to provide …

A Survey And Critique Of The “Seller In Possession” Statutory Regimes Of Common Law Canada: An Abc Prequel, Clayton Bangsund

Dalhousie Law Journal

The article examines the various provincial and territorial statutory regimes that apply to resolve title disputes emanating from a “seller in possession” scenario in which an initial buyer leaves bought goods in the possession of a seller who then transfers them to a subsequent bona de purchaser. Presently there are four distinct statutory models in force across common law Canada. Some provinces and territories incorporate modernized electronic personal property registry infrastructure into their statutory priority regimes, while others do not. The author undertakes a comparative assessment of the four models, highlights their strengths and weaknesses, and asserts that Model 2—representative …

Disrupting Business As Usual: Considering Teaching Methods In Business Law Classrooms, Jeffery Hewitt, Shanthi E. Senthe

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC)’s Calls to Action propose signimcant changes to legal education. No law school classroom is exempt, including business law courses. We are two of a growing number ofscholars in the legal academy actively incorporating Indigenous laws, critical race theory and socio-economic perspectives into business law courses as part of our responses to the TRC. This paper explores a field school we developed at Windsor Law as a response to the Calls to Action. In a temporary fusion of two courses, Secured Transactions along with Indigenous Peoples, Art & Human Rights, a synergy emerges …

Manufacturing Consent To Climate Inaction: A Case Study Of The Globe And Mail ’S Pipeline Coverage, Jason Maclean

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canada has long been a climate change policy laggard. Canada is among the world’s poorest-performing countries in terms of climate action—not only is Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions-reduction target under the Paris Agreement insufficiently ambitious, Canada is not even remotely on track to meet it. Canada’s enduring inaction on climate change is legitimized and sustained by its mainstream corporate news media, which contribute to the oil and gas industry’s capture of Canadian climate and energy policy. In this article, I examine how Canada’s leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, editorially framed the completion of the controversial expansion of the Trans …

Third-Party Liability Of Directors And Officers: Reconciling Corporate Personality And Personal Responsibility In Tort, Michael Marin

Dalhousie Law Journal

When is a director or of�� cer personally liable in tort to a party who is not the corporation he or she serves? In Canada, there is no clear answer. The law is marked by division both within and between appellate courts, resulting in judgments that are hard to reconcile and verge on arbitrary. This is likely attributable to the mistaken belief that there is a tension between personal liability and corporate personality, as well as the disputed relationship between common law and statutory obligations. To address these challenges, most Canadian courts have followed a threshold corporate law analysis, which …

Corporate Risk And Climate Impacts To Critical Energy Infrastructure In Canada, Rudiger Tscherning

Dalhousie Law Journal

Recent climate events such as Hurrican Harvey in Texas foreshadow the dangers that could result from critical energy infrastructure failure in Canada due to physical impacts caused by climate change. This article examines the types of climate impacts that could affect critical energy infrastructure in Canada. The article argues that these impacts translate into three types of corporate risk to the owners and operators of the critical asset: economic risks to the infrastructure asset; management and operational risks to the corporation; and risks arising from corporate disclosure obligations. Applying the theoretical approach of "risk management," the article concludes that, on …

Grab The Fire Extinguisher Comparing Uk Schemes Of Arrangement To U.S. Corporate Bankruptcy After Jevic, David S. Stevenson

Cleveland State Law Review

Corporations overwhelmed with debt frequently turn to the courts for help to restructure their credit obligations, but some courts are more helpful than others. This is especially true when creditors cannot agree on a particular resolution, let alone when some creditors will not be paid at all. International corporations often have a choice of forum—and substantive insolvency law—based on their legal and physical presence in dozens or even hundreds of countries. The UK and U.S. offer different avenues for using insolvency law to restructure debts without total liquidation, and the American avenue has become more difficult to navigate thanks to …

Corporate Oversight And Disobedience, Elizabeth Pollman

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article explores the public-regarding purpose of the obedience and oversight duties in corporate law and provides a descriptive account of how they are applied in practice. The Article argues that the fidelity to external law required by the duty of good faith largely serves a legitimizing role for corporate law. Expressing obligations of legal compliance and oversight within corporate law acknowledges societal interests in the rule of law and preserves the ability of courts to flexibly respond to particularly salient and egregious violations of public trust, should they arise, without upending case law developed over decades.

Further, this Article …

The Social Costs Of Dividends And Share Repurchases, J.B. Heaton

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

A long-held view in the academy is that shareholders are "residual claimants” in the sense that shareholders are paid in full only after the corporation pays its creditors. The reality on the ground is far different. Corporations give assets away to their shareholders long before they have satisfied creditors, both voluntary contract creditors and involuntary tort creditors. In particular, existing U.S. corporate and voidable transfer laws allow corporations to pay dividends and make share repurchases up to the point where the corporation is insolvent or nearly so. Voluntary creditors can limit dividends and share repurchases by contract, but involuntary creditors …

Law School News: A Busy, Busy Time In Admiralty Law 10-18-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Recognition Of Singapore´S New Restructuring Framework, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the past years, Singapore has modernized its insolvency framework with the purpose of becoming an international hub for debt restructuring. One of the most significant reforms has affected the Singapore Scheme of Arrangement (SSoA). Under the new SSoA, debtors are allowed to remain in possession leading the restructuring process while enjoying the protection of an automatic moratorium with worldwide effects as well as a variety of tools imported from the US Chapter 11, including the availability of DIP financing, the restriction of ipso facto clauses, and a cross-class cramdown. Therefore, the new SSoA differs significantly from the typical scheme …

Identities Lost: Enacting Federal Law Mandating Disclosure & Notice After A Data Security Breach, John Ogle

Arkansas Law Review

Identity theft is real, it’s here, and consumers need protection. Over the past five years hackers have stolen billions of consumers’ sensitive information like social security numbers, addresses, and bank routing numbers from companies that have neglected their security measures. Most of the time these security breaches are easily preventable. Companies sometimes wait weeks, months, or even years to inform the customers whose information was stolen because there is no federal law that requires disclosure. As of 2018, all 50 states have adopted security breach notification laws that require companies to inform consumers that their information may have been stolen …

Propuesta Para La Mejora Y Modernización De La Legislación Societaria En Ecuador [Proposal For The Improvement And Modernization Of Corporate Law In Ecuador] In Spanish, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez, Cesar Coronel Jones

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper seeks to provide some policy recommendations for the improvement and modernization of corporate law in Ecuador. These proposals have been based on the international literature and the particular features of Ecuador (that is, a country with many micro and small companies, state-owned enterprises, underdeveloped capital markets, unsophisticated courts, among other aspects). Secondly, since the legal, economic and institutional features of Ecuador can be found in other Latin American countries, this paper also seeks to be helpful to other countries in the region planning to reform their corporate laws. Finally, this paper seeks to contribute to the improvement and …

Law School News: Introducing The Joint Jd/Mba Degree 03/07/2019, Edward Fitzpatrick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

When Does Big Law Work?, Abraham J.B. Cable

Marquette Law Review

Law firms have grown from hundreds of lawyers to thousands of lawyers, and the conventional wisdom is that this trend fuels dissatisfaction among lawyers. This Article scrutinizes that conventional wisdom based on interviews with lawyers who joined large firms through law-firm mergers. These lawyers offer a valuable perspective on firm size because they made abrupt changes from small to large firms. Though some interviewees echoed the conventional wisdom, others suggested that larger firm size has limited or even positive effects on professional satisfaction. In one counter-narrative, large law firms are relatively diffuse organizations that have limited influence over individual lawyers. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Navigating Sino-American Business Relationships, Ryan Stenquist

Marriott Student Review

Relationships between American and Chinese companies have never been more important or profitable as they are now. With linguistic, moral, governmental, and legal systems developed entirely independent of each other for thousands of years, these relationships also prove the most difficult and complex to navigate. This article explores mistakes foreigners often make while doing business in China, the current environment and culture of joint ventures with native Chinese, and how to succeed in the challenging yet rewarding economy now opening up to the world.

Online Terms As In Terrorem Devices, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Works

Online shopping has quickly replaced the brick-and-mortar experience for a large portion of the consuming public. The online transaction itself is rote: browse items, add them to your cart, and check out. Somewhere along the way, the consumer is likely made aware of (or at least exposed to) the merchant's terms and conditions, via either a link or a pop-up box. Such terms and conditions have become so ubiquitous that most consumers would be hardpressed to find a merchant that doesn't try to impose them somewhere on their website. Though such terms and conditions are pervasive, most consumers do not …

China As A "National Strategic Buyer": Toward A Multilateral Regime For Cross-Border M&A, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Curtis J. Milhaupt

Faculty Scholarship

Unlike the case of cross-border trade, there is no explicit international governance regime for cross-border M&A; rather, there is a shared understanding that publicly traded companies are generally for purchase by any bidder – domestic or foreign – willing to offer a sufficiently large premium over a target’s stock market price. The unspoken premise that undergirds the system is that the prospective buyer is motivated by private economic gain-seeking.

The entry of China into the global M&A market threatens the fundamental assumptions of the current permissive international regime. China has become a significant player in the cross-border M&A market, particularly …

The Rise Of Business Trusts In Sustainable Neo-Innovative Economies, Lee-Ford Tritt, Ryan Scott Teschner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article is organized as follows: Part I provides a basic understanding of business trusts in the United States. Next, Part II explores the differences between business trusts in the United States and those in Singapore. Finally, Part III discusses how historical and cultural influences may have shaped the success—or lack thereof—of the business trust form in Singapore and in the United States.

Citizen Capitalism: How A Universal Fund Can Provide Influence And Income To All (2019), Lynn A. Stout, Sergio Gramitto, Tamara Belinfanti

Books

Corporations have a huge influence on the life of every citizen--this book offers a visionary but practical plan to give every citizen a say in how corporations are run while also gaining some supplemental income. It lays out a clear approach that uses the mechanisms of the private market to hold corporations accountable to the public.

This would happen through the creation of what the authors call the Universal Fund, a kind of national, democratic, mega mutual fund. Every American over eighteen would be entitled to a share and would participate in directing its share voting choices. Corporations and wealthy …

Teaching Legal Studies In Business Degrees: A Review Of A Method And Its Practice, Diane Kraal, Andrew Coleman

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The legal studies teaching methodology IRAC (issue, rule, application, conclusion) is widely used in universities by both law and business schools. This paper examines the effectiveness of IRAC from a teaching perspective and its usefulness for business students. Data is generated from an Australian university case study using teacher interviews and a student survey. The findings suggest that, because of its flexibility and logical structure, the practice of IRAC has become normalised. However it is only effective if teachers disseminate these features consistently in their teaching. Students in the study understood the usefulness of IRAC for classwork, but encountered application …

Jury Trial Disparities Between Class Actions And Shareholder Derivative Actions In State Courts, Ann M. Scarlett

All Faculty Scholarship

Class actions and shareholder derivative lawsuits are both forms of representative litigation that historically had to be brought in the equity courts to be decided by a judge, rather than in the common-law courts to be decided by a jury. In 1938, the federal courts merged law and equity by passing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allowed both legal and equitable claims to be heard within the same civil action. After law and equity merged, the Supreme Court interpreted the Seventh Amendment’s preservation of the right to jury trial as including not just actions recognized at common law, …

Soft And Hard Strategies: The Role Of Business In The Crafting Of International Commercial Law, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

Part I returns to the classic definition of hard international law initially put forward by Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal and related IR scholars and analyzes existing commercial law treaties in light of this definition. It concludes that virtually none of these commercial law treaties constitute “hard” international law because nearly all commercial law treaties rely on national courts for enforcement. But Abbott and Snidal’s focus on the extent to which international law is legalized—and especially the extent to which it is enforced by international actors—may matter less with commercial than other more public international lawmaking. This is because the …

Business And Commercial Litigation In Federal Courts (4th Ed.) Edited By Robert L. Haig, James M. Wicks

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Four years ago, I reviewed Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (3d ed.), concluding then that notwithstanding the dwindling “brick-and-mortar,” traditional law libraries, this multi-volume treatise is a worthy tool in the arsenal of the business litigator. Well, now nineteen years after its inception, the treatise, Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (4th ed.) (“BCL”), is in its Fourth Edition, having added twenty-five new chapters leading to three more volumes. Is it still worth the shelf space? Unquestionably, this landmark treatise remains an essential guide for commercial litigators and in-house counsel alike. The addition of the new …

Law School News: Bailey And Kilpatrick Join Rwu School Of Law Board 11/01/2018, Edward Fitzpatrick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.