Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Can Corporate Governance Reforms Increase Firms' Market Values: Evidence From India, Bernard S. Black, Vikramaditya Khanna

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

A central problem in studying the valuation effects of corporate governance reforms is that most reforms affect all firms in a country. Thus, if share prices move when governance reforms are announced, the price changes may reflect the reforms, but could also reflect other new information. We address this identification issue by studying India’s adoption in 2000 of major governance reforms (Clause 49), a number of which resemble and predate Sarbanes Oxley. Clause 49 requires, among other things, audit committees, a minimum number of independent directors, and CEO/CFO certification of financial statements and internal controls. The reforms were sponsored by …

Triumph Or Tragedy? The Curious Path Of Corporate Disclosure Reform In The U.K., Cynthia A. Williams, John M. Conley

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Stakeholders And Sustainability: An Argument For Responsible Corporate Discision-Making, Tara J. Radin

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Corporate Boards And New Environmentalism, Jayne W. Barnard

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

A Tax Lawyer's Perspective On Section 527 Organizations, Gregg D. Polsky

Scholarly Works

Proponents of campaign finance reform generally assume that, by definition, all section 527 organizations are partisan, election-driven organizations. They also believe that by self-identifying to the IRS, these organizations receive substantial tax benefits. Based on these presuppositions, reformers argue that strict regulation of 527organizations is both constitutional and normatively beneficial. In this Essay, I argue that once section 527 is carefully analyzed from a tax perspective, it becomes evident that these assumptions are flawed. Ultimately, I conclude that section 527 should not be used as a mechanism for regulating campaign finance

The Application Of Tax Treaties To Investment Funds, Niccolo Pallesi

ExpressO

Among financial investors, investment funds are the ones that mostly have increased their importance in capital markets where the regulation on investment funds is still incipient. By using investment funds, individual investors can have the possibility to participate in various companies as well as in market places worldwide without the need of specific and elaborated knowledge of the same companies and markets. After an introductory chapter I start analyzing the definition and activity of an investment fund, attention is also paid to the UCITS regulation for European investment funds. In the next chapter I analyze how investment funds are taxed …

The Business Judgment Rule, Disclosure, And Executive Compensation, D. A. Jeremy Telman

Law Faculty Publications

Despite its ubiquity in corporate law, the business judgment rule remains a doctrinal puzzle. Both courts and scholars offer different understandings of the Rule's role in litigation brought against corporate directors and different justifications for its deployment to insulate such directors from liability for breaches of fiduciary duties. This Article rejects all existing justifications for the Rule and argues that the Rule is no longer needed to protect directors from liability either because the justifications offered never made any sense or because directors are now protected by other, statutory means. Rather, the Rule is needed today not to protect directors, …

Twilight In The Zone Of Insolvency: Fiduciary Duty And Creditors In Troubled Companies, Royce De R. Barondes, Lisa M. Fairfax, Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Robert Lawless, Jonathan C. Lipson, Russell C. Silberglied

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Fall And Rise Of Federal Corporation Law, Richard A. Booth

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Devilry, Complicity, And Greed: Transitional Justice And Odious Debt, David C. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of odious debts came into its full in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century to deal with the financial injustices of colonialism and its stalking horse, despotism. The basic rule, as articulated by Alexander Sack in 1927, is that debts incurred by an illegitimate regime that neither benefit nor have the consent of the people of a territory are personal to the regime and are subject to unilateral recision by a successor government. While the traditional doctrine focused on the nature and circumstances of individual debts, it has been expanded in recent years, moving the focus from the …

The Criminalization Of Corporate Law, Lisa M. Fairfax

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Duty To Creditors Reconsidered - Filling A Much Needed Gap In Corporation Law, Richard A. Booth

Faculty Scholarship

The most fundamental question of corporation law is to whom does the board of directors of a corporation owe its fiduciary duty. Recently, the question has tended to be whether and under what circumstances the board of directors has the duty to maximize stockholder wealth. But if a corporation is insolvent (or close to it), business decisions designed to maximize stockholder wealth may result in a reduction of creditor wealth. Although the conventional wisdom is that creditors must protect themselves by contractual means, there is a substantial body of case law that says that creditors can assert claims sounding in …

Piercing The Corporate Veil, Financial Responsibility, And The Limits Of Limited Liability, David K. Millon

Scholarly Articles

Veil-piercing is the most heavily litigated issue in corporate law, yet legal doctrine in this area is notoriously incoherent. In this article, I argue that the only way to make sense of veil-piercing is through an accurate understanding of the policy underlying limited liability. Once that is appreciated it then becomes possible to make sense of the appropriate limits on limited liability. Piercing the corporate veil can then serve the useful function of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate reliance on statutory limited liability.

After surveying efficiency rationales for limited liability and finding them unpersuasive, I propose that the best way to …

Criminalization Of Corporate Law: The Impact On Shareholders And Other Constituents, David K. Millon

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Some Peer-To-Peer, Democratically And Voluntarily Produced Thoughts About 'The Wealth Of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets And Freedom,' By Yochai Benkler, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

In this review essay, Bartow concludes that The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler is a book well worth reading, but that Benkler still has a bit more work to do before his Grand Unifying Theory of Life, The Internet, and Everything is satisfactorily complete. It isn't enough to concede that the Internet won't benefit everyone. He needs to more thoroughly consider the ways in which the lives of poor people actually worsen when previously accessible information, goods and services are rendered less convenient or completely unattainable by their migration online. Additionally, the …

Hollowing Out Of Corporate Social Responsibility: Abandoning A Tradition In An Age Of Declining Hegemony, The, Richard Marens

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corporate Social Performance: Ethics And Corporate Culture, Newman S. Peery Jr.

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Uniform Domestic Partnership Act: Marrying Business Partnership And Family Law, Jennifer Ann Drobac, Antony Page

Faculty Publications

For decades, Americans have argued about who may marry and what marriage actually means in legal, religious, and philosophical terms. For almost as long, two problems - the rising divorce rate and the poverty of some "divorced" children and their custodians - have fed concerns about the viability of marriage as an institution that promotes domestic stability and economic security. This Article explores the notion that domestic partnership based upon business partnership law would better serve more couples, their families, and society as a whole. It proposes a Uniform Domestic Partnership Act, loosely modeled after the UPA, as a substitute …

Telecommunications Regulation In Poland, Stanisław Piątek (Red.)

Monografie CARS/CARS Monographs

This book examines and offers critical comments on the evolution of national law and regulatory practice concerning the telecommunications sector in Poland. The Telecommunications Law Act was promulgated in 2004 with the intention of finally harmonizing the institutional and substantive laws regulating Polish telecommunications with the EU regulatory framework on electronic communications. The analysis of the compliance with, adaptations to and deviations from the standard rules of the EU regulatory framework is an important part of this book. The contributions cover selected elements of Poland’s regulatory practice that were of special importance for the development of the national telecommunications market …

The Impact On Shareholders And Other Constituents, Jill Fisch

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Human Rights For Transnational Corporations, Lucien J. Dhooge

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Public Purpose, Private Losses: Regulatory Expropriation And Environmental Regulation In International Investment Law, Justin R. Marlles

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

(Not) Advising Corporate Officers About Fiduciary Duties, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, Robert V. Ricca

Scholarly Articles

This Article explores the intersection of an important, unresolved corporate law issue and an overlooked professional responsibility issue persistently arising in the corporate milieu. The corporate law question currently unaddressed in Delaware law is whether the fiduciary duties of corporate officers, as agents, are the same as, or different from, the fiduciary duties of corporate directors. A related question is whether, in reviewing officer conduct, courts will apply the business judgment rule in the same broad (and protective) manner in which it is applied to assessing director behavior.

The professional responsibility issue concerns whether, and how well, lawyers are advising …

Having The Fiduciary Duty Talk: Model Advice For Corporate Officers (And Other Senior Agents), Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Scholarly Articles

Countless legal materials address the fiduciary duties of corporate directors. These include extensive decisional law, numerous institutes and continuing legal education seminars, several treatises and casebooks, and the well-known Corporate Director's Guidebook, recently released in its fifth edition. By contrast, legal materials on the fiduciary duties of corporate officers - key actors and agents in any company - are quite sparse. Case law is meager and undeveloped, with even such a baseline issue as the applicability of the business judgment rule lacking resolution. Treatises, institutes, and other legal materials frequently lump officer fiduciary duties with those of directors or treat …

The Inadequacy Of Fiduciary Duty Doctrine: Why Corporate Managers Have Little To Fear And What Might Be Done About It, Celia R. Taylor

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the inadequacy of current corporate fiduciary duty doctrine to police corporate managers effectively as demonstrated by the likes of Kenneth Lay and Bernie Ebbers. It traces the development of regulatory control over American corporations and shows how that control weakened over time. It then outlines the devolution of corporate fiduciary duties that were meant to safeguard the corporate arena in place of strict regulatory control. It shows how the effectiveness of traditional fiduciary duties has eroded to the point where they exercise little meaningful constraints. The article then argues that that some change is needed and suggests …

Carbon Offsets: Are Such Credits Effectively Helping Mitigate Climate Change? , Catherine Verdier

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Regulating Multinational Corporations: Towards Principles Of Cross-Border Legal Frameworks In A Globalized World Balancing Rights With Responsibilities, Joseph E. Stiglitz

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Business & Human Rights Law: Diverging Trends In The United States And France, Anna Triponel

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panelist Biographies, Introduction By Dana Gold, Editor's Note, Dana L. Gold

Seattle University Law Review

This conference brought together nationally recognized scholars, attorneys, policymakers and activists from across the country who represent a depth of knowledge and range of viewpoints necessary to explore the intersection of corporate and First Amendment law. This discussion was sometimes heated, frequently politically surprising, and always robust. In this symposium issue, the Seattle University Law Review has captured the presentations and exchanges at this unique, multidisciplinary conference.

Criminalization Of Corporate Law: The Impact Of Criminal Sanctions On Corporate Misconduct, Donna M. Nagy

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.