Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Shareholder Political Primacy, Jay B. Kesten

Scholarly Publications

Corporate political activity raises an important and difficult question of corporate law: who decides when the corporation should speak and what it should say? In several cases, the Supreme Court has provided a clear answer: shareholders, acting through the procedures of corporate democracy. While this holding has attracted substantial academic and public criticism, there has been no sustained evaluation (beyond identifying the potential agency costs of corporate political activity) of the possibility that the Supreme Court's appeal to the fraught concept of "corporate democracy," though woefully under-theorized, might be the best allocation of power in the limited context of corporate …

Unintended Consequences Of The Fourteenth Amendment And What They Tell Us About Its Interpretation, Richard L. Aynes

Akron Law Review

Much of the literature, understandably, seeks to find out what the framers of the amendment or the ratifiers of the amendment “intended.”...This article treats that issue as well, but begins with a different question: Does the amendment have consequences which were unintended by the framers? Over one and a quarter centuries ago, Justice Joseph Bradley answered that question in the affirmative: “It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far ranging character of its terms.” I suggest those unintended consequences include the effect of the Citizenship Clause on the force of the Fourteenth …

Time To Lift The Veil Of Inequality In Health Care Coverage: Using Corporate Law To Defend The Affordable Care Act, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Derivative Nature Of Corporate Constitutional Rights, Margaret M. Blair, Elizabeth Pollman

William & Mary Law Review

This Article engages the two-hundred-year history of corporate constitutional rights jurisprudence to show that the Supreme Court has long accorded rights to corporations based on the rationale that corporations represent associations of people from whom such rights are derived. The Article draws on the history of business corporations in America to argue that the Court’s characterization of corporations as associations made sense throughout most of the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century, however, when the Court was deciding several key cases involving corporate rights, this associational view was already becoming a poor fit for some corporations. The Court’s failure …

Transnational Governance Interactions: A Critical Review Of The Legal Literature, Stepan Wood

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Overlaps and interactions among diverse legal rules, actors and orders have long preoccupied legal scholars. This preoccupation has intensified in recent years as transnational efforts to regulate business have proliferated. This proliferation has led to increasingly frequent and intense interactions among transnational regulatory actors and programs. These transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) are the subject of an emerging interdisciplinary research agenda. This paper situates the TBGI research agenda in the broader field of transnational legal theory by presenting a critical review of the ways in which legal scholars have addressed the phenomenon of governance interactions. Legal scholars frequently recognize the …

Transnational Governance Interactions: A Critical Review Of The Legal Literature, Stepan Wood

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Overlaps and interactions among diverse legal rules, actors and orders have long preoccupied legal scholars. This preoccupation has intensified in recent years as transnational efforts to regulate business have proliferated. This proliferation has led to increasingly frequent and intense interactions among transnational regulatory actors and programs. These transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) are the subject of an emerging interdisciplinary research agenda. This paper situates the TBGI research agenda in the broader field of transnational legal theory by presenting a critical review of the ways in which legal scholars have addressed the phenomenon of governance interactions. Legal scholars frequently recognize the …

Do Corporations Have Religious Beliefs?, Jason Iuliano

Indiana Law Journal

Despite two hundred years of jurisprudence on the topic of corporate personhood, the Supreme Court has failed to endorse a philosophically defensible theory of the corporation. In this Article, I attempt to fill that void. Drawing upon the extensive philosophical literature on personhood and group agency, I argue that corporations qualify as persons in their own right. This leads me to answer the titular question with an emphatic yes. Contrary to how it first seems, that conclusion does not warrant granting expansive constitutional rights to corporations. It actually suggests the opposite. Using the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate as a …

The Derivative Nature Of Corporate Constitutional Rights, Margaret M. Blair

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article engages the two hundred year history of corporate constitutional rights jurisprudence to show that the Supreme Court has long accorded rights to corporations based on the rationale that corporations represent associations of people from whom such rights are derived. The Article draws on the history of business corporations in America to argue that the Court’s characterization of corporations as associations made sense throughout most of the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century, however, when the Court was deciding several key cases involving corporate rights, this associational view was already becoming a poor fit for some corporations. The …

"Least Restrictive Means”: Burwell V. Hobby Lobby, Noah Marks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Why Personhood Matters, Tamara R. Piety

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

One of the most controversial aspect of the Supreme Court's decisions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby is its treatment of corporate personhood. Many members of the public object to the notion that corporations should have the same rights as human beings. Yet many scholars claim that this concern is misplaced. In this article I argue that concern about corporate personhood is not misplaced because the personhood metaphor conceals the degree to which there has not been an adequate justification given for extending fundamental rights to corporations. Focusing on personhood allows us to push on the metaphor to ask whether …

Court Of Appeals Of New York, In The Matter Of Nassau County Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated June 24, 2003 "Doe Law Firm" V. Spitzer, Christin Harris

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Books Received, Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Systematic Ict Surveillance By Employers: Are Your Personal Activities Private?, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

This paper reviews the various methods of information and communications technology (ICT) that is used by employers to peer into the work lives and, in some cases, private lives of employees. Some of the most common methods – such as computer and Internet monitoring, video surveillance, and global positioning systems (GPS) – have resulted in employee disciplines that have been challenged in courts. This paper provides background information on United States (U.S.) laws and court cases which, in this age of easily accessible information, mostly support the employer. Assessments regarding regulations and policies, which will need to be continually updated …

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

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

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

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 …

Toward A Constitutional Review Of The Poison Pill, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Robert J. Jackson Jr.

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

We argue that the state-law rules governing poison pills are vulnerable to challenges based on preemption by the Williams Act. Such challenges, we show, could well have a major impact on the corporate law landscape.

The Williams Act established a federal regime regulating unsolicited tender offers, but states subsequently developed a body of state antitakeover laws that impose additional impediments to such offers. In a series of well-known cases during the 1970s and 1980s, the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, held some of these state antitakeover laws preempted by the Williams Act. To date, however, federal courts and commentators …

Toward A Constitutional Review Of The Poison Pill Essay, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Robert J. Jackson Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

We argue that the state-law rules governing poison pills are vulnerable to challenges based on preemption by the Williams Act. Such challenges, we show, could well have a major impact on the corporate law landscape.

The Williams Act established a federal regime regulating unsolicited tender offers, but states subsequently developed a body of state antitakeover laws that impose additional impediments to such offers. In a series of well-known cases during the 1970s and 1980s, the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, held some of these state antitakeover laws preempted by the Williams Act. To date, however, federal courts and commentators …

Consolidated Edison Company Of New York V. Public Service Commission: Freedom Of Speech Extended To Monopolies - Is There No Escape For The Consumer?, Lynn K. Warren

Pepperdine Law Review

The author's focus is upon an opinion of the United States Supreme Court which silently extended first amendment freedoms to a corporate monopoly. The majority attempts a balancing of the monopoly utility's freedom of speech against the state's protection of the privacy interests of the ratepayers and finds the privacy interest not to be so compelling as to justify any restriction on freedom of speech. The author suggests that the privacy interest is so substantial as to be compelling and further agrees with the dissent, that because of the special position of the Consolidated Edison Company as a monopoly and …

Striking A Balance Between Privacy And Online Commerce, Mark Bartholomew

Utah OnLaw: The Utah Law Review Online Supplement

It is becoming commonplace to note that privacy and online commerce are on a collision course. Corporate entities archive and monetize more and more personal information. Citizens increasingly resent the intrusive nature of such data collection and use. Just noticing this conflict, however, tells us little. In Informing and Reforming the Marketplace of Ideas: The Public-Private Model for Data Production and the First Amendment, Professor Shubha Ghosh not only notes the tension between the costs and benefits of data commercialization, but suggests three normative perspectives for balancing privacy and commercial speech. This is valuable because without a rich theoretical framework …

Federalism And Preemption In October Term 1999, Jonathan D. Varat

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Tort Statute, With Aliens And Pirates, Eugene Kontorovich

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

Prece-Don't: Corporations And The Rise Of The Modern Judicial Dictatorship, Justin Levitt

Florida A & M University Law Review

In 2010, the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, declared unconstitutional any law forbidding corporations and unions from using general treasury funds for "electioneering communication," or political advocacy transmitted by broadcast, cable, or satellite communication in the period leading up to a federal election.

This note will examine the implications of the Citizens United decision and will argue that the future of First Amendment protection of corporate speech does not turn on any notion of corporate personhood. It will explore exactly how the Court has applied the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to corporations. It …

American Legal History Survey: Syllabus, Anders Walker

All Faculty Scholarship

This syllabus provides an overview of American Legal History, focusing on the manner in which law has been used to organize American society. Several themes will be traced through the semester, including law’s role in encouraging innovation and regulating social relations, in part through the elaboration of legal disciplines like property, tort, contract, criminal law, tax, business associations, administrative law, environmental law, securities regulation, commercial law, immigration, and health law. Emphasis will also be placed on the origins and evolution of constitutional law, from the founding to the present.

Property, Liberty, And The Rights Of The Community: Lessons From Munn V. Illinois, Paul Kens

Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal

When considering the extent to which the United States Constitution places a limit on government regulation of business, today's historians and constitutional theorists treat the question as a matter of balancing economic liberty or property rights against government power. Moreover, modem scholars commonly maintain that this balancing formula represents the predominant tradition in constitutional history. Tracing it back to the tenants of Jacksonian democracy that emphasized distrust of government, they imply that constitutional history has developed as a straight line: always with an emphasis on individual liberty and always with a presumption that entrepreneurial liberty should be favored over governments' …

Commentary: Campaign Finance In The Wake Of Citizens United, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 583 (2011), Thomas E. Mann

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Capitalist Joker: The Strange Origins, Disturbing Past, And Uncertain Future Of Corporate Personhood In American Law, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 643 (2011), David H. Gans, Douglas T. Kendall

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

So What If Corporations Aren't People?, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 701 (2011), Ilya Shapiro, Caitlyn W. Mccarthy

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Citizens United And Tiered Personhood, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 717 (2011), Atiba R. Ellis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.