Business Organizations Law Commons^™

For Richer Or Poorer: Incentivizing Meaningful Investments In Qualified Opportunity Zones, Monica L. Keo

Seattle University Law Review

The wealth disparity in the United States is nothing new. Many have proposed wealth taxes and higher tax rates for large corporations to address income inequality; however, these proposals have been criticized as tax programs that are difficult to administer. Congress passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017 and created a new investment vehicle known as the Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ). The QOZ program incentivizes private investors to invest their capital gains in exchange for a reduction in capital gains tax. The underlying idea of the QOZ program is to utilize a new tool designed to spur …

Shareholder Meetings And Freedom Rides: The Story Of Peck V. Greyhound, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

In 1947, civil rights pioneers James Peck and Bayard Rustin, members of the radical religious group, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and its offshoot, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), prepared to embark on the Journey of Reconciliation, an interracial protest against segregated busing in the American South. But first, they did something else radical: they bought shares in a corporation. A year later, after their travels in the South had led to terror, death threats, beatings, and in Rustin’s case, a term on a chain gang, they brought their civil rights activism to a new site of protest—the shareholder meeting …

The Virginia Company To Chick-Fil-A: Christian Business In America, 1600–2000, Joseph P. Slaughter

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues that the proprietors of what the author terms “Christian Business Enterprises” (CBEs) would strenuously disagree with Justice Ginsburg and assert that their express mission is to earn a profit while propagating their religious values. As such, they operate businesses “infused with religion,” where Christian values are interwoven into the very fabric of the company and how the firm relates to its stakeholders, employees, customers, suppliers, and communities.

This Article further demonstrates the rich heritage of religious for-profit businesses throughout American history by focusing on a series of Protestant CBEs that led to today’s CBE giants: Chick-fil-A and …

The Corporation As Trinity, David Skeel

Seattle University Law Review

This Symposium Article takes Adolf Berle's cue in several respects. Most importantly, it will look to Augustine for guidance in developing insights into the nature of the corporation—in particular, corporate personhood. Where Berle drew inspiration from The City of God, this Article looks to a different Augustinian masterpiece, The Trinity, which has played a pivotal role in Christians’ understanding of who God is. Christian theology, as brilliantly explicated in The Trinity, states that God consists of three different persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—but is a single divine being. This Article argues that corporate personhood has similar qualities …

Sacred Corporate Law, Giancarlo Anello, Mohamed Arafa, Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci

Seattle University Law Review

This Article investigates the sacred origins of the corporate form. It sheds light on the sacred rituals performed to establish Ancient Roman cities as legal entities. It discusses the role of the Roman Catholic Church in developing the corporate form and in giving birth to a systemized set of rules regulating corporations, which we commonly call corporate law. It analyzes the limitations to the use of the corporate form in Islamic law as well as the streams of Islamic law jurisprudence that recognize legal capacity to specific entities with religious, social, or charitable purposes. It surveys the characteristics of two …

#Metoo Innovators: Disrupting The Race And Gender Code By Asian Americans In The Tech Industry, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

This Article focuses on how Asian American women innovators of the #MeToo generation are disrupting the code of conduct in the tech industry. The code is hard-wired into the tech bro culture of mirrortocracy, resulting in hiring practices that perpetuate existing company demographics and statistics that show that Asian American women face 2.91 times the disadvantage compared to white women. In addition, of all gender and racial groups, Asian American female innovators are the least likely to become executives. This Article identifies and explains how these innovators are the disruptors on several fronts. Utilizing everything from judicial means to traditional …

Regulating The Cyberpunk Reality: Private Body Modification And The Dangers Of ‘Body Hacking’, Zachary Paul Birnbaum

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

An “Opportunity” To Invest In A “Rat-Infested” City: The Effects Of President Trump’S Economic Development Plan In Baltimore, Michelle L. Sidle

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Cannabis Ip: How Federal Inconsistencies Have Stifled A Budding Industry, Celena Dyal

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Llc Default Rules Are Hazardous To Member Liquidity, Donald J. Weidner

Scholarly Publications

Simply by forming LLCs, entrepreneurs now unwittingly lock themselves in to perpetual entities that offer them no liquidity and present them with costly procedural obstacles to enforcing both their agreement among themselves and their statutory rights. Even in at will LLCs that are member managed, recent LLC acts deny members both a right to dissolve and a right to be bought out. While thus locking members in, these acts deny them standing to bring many if not most of their claims among themselves or against the firm. In swinging so dramatically toward a corporate model, recent acts have failed to …

Symposium Introduction: A Tribute To Roberta Karmel, James Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

To Innovate Or Regulate: How To Regulate Cloud Service Providers Within Financial Institutions, Morgan Willard

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The purpose of this article is to analyze whether cloud service providers should be considered Systemically Important Financial Market Utilities (SIFMU), subjecting them to increased oversight. It also considers the risks and benefits associated with the use of the technology by financial institutions, as well as potential alternatives. Overall, this article argues that cloud service providers do not fall under the current SIFMU framework, and any regulation of the technology should strive to strike a balance between innovation and safe regulation.

Covid-19 And Corporate Social Responsibility: Business Responses To The Pandemic In The Inland Northwest, Jacob H. Rooksby

Law Faculty Publications

The novel coronavirus upended the world beginning in early spring of 2020. As travel ground to a halt, and governments issued stay-at-home orders, the impact on commerce was immediate and has proven to be lasting. Employees accustomed to working in offices and job sites were told to stay home. Certain industries received permission to have so-called “essential” personnel continue their labor in person, but for many employers the reality they faced was not so simple: learn to adapt to the new environment or succumb to the new environment. ...

Looking Back With A Legend: Ira Millstein Reflects On The Impact Of Milton Friedman's Views On Corporate Governance, Eric L. Talley, Ira M. Millstein, Leo E. Strine Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In this discussion, corporate governance legend and frequent The Business Lawyer contributor Ira M. Millstein reflects on the impact of Milton Friedman and his adherents on our corporate governance system and economy generally, as well as the path forward to an economy that functions better for the many. Millstein takes an historical perspective in conversation with former Chief Justice and Chancellor of Delaware, Leo E. Strine, Jr., moderated by Professor Eric Talley of Columbia Law School. Millstein situates the evolution of our corporate governance system, including the effect of Friedman and the Chicago school on it, within the political dynamics …

The Corporate Governance Machine, Dorothy S. Lund, Elizabeth Pollman

Faculty Scholarship

The conventional view of corporate governance is that it is a neutral set of processes and practices that govern how a company is managed. We demonstrate that this view is profoundly mistaken: For public companies in the United States, corporate governance has become a “system” composed of an array of institutional players, with a powerful shareholderist orientation. Our original account of this “corporate governance machine” generates insights about the past, present, and future of corporate governance. As for the past, we show how the concept of corporate governance developed alongside the shareholder primacy movement. This relationship is reflected in the …

Should Human Rights Practice Be Rights-Based?, Sarah Knuckey, Margaret Satterthwaite

Faculty Scholarship

Human rights scholars and organizations often call on governments to adopt ‘human rights-based approaches’ (HRBAs) to many policy areas, from climate change to health policy. HRBAs identify rights and obligations, and advance the principles of participation, accountability, equality, and non-discrimination. This chapter argues that HRBAs have been exported to many fields without ever being sufficiently integrated within human rights advocacy. We find that NGOs often fail to adhere to foundational human rights principles in their own work, reproducing unjust power hierarchies, objectifying victims, and disempowering rights-holders. Were HRBAs adopted by more human rights organizations, the face of human rights advocacy …

Constructing Countervailing Power: Law And Organizing In An Era Of Political Inequality, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes an innovative approach to remedying the crisis of political inequality: using law to facilitate organizing by the poor and working class, not only as workers, but also as tenants, debtors, welfare beneficiaries, and others. The piece draws on the social-movements literature, and the successes and failures of labor law, to show how law can supplement the deficient regimes of campaign finance and lobbying reform and enable lower-income groups to build organizations capable of countervailing the political power of the wealthy. As such, the Article offers a new direction forward for the public-law literature on political power and …

Federal Corporate Law And The Business Of Banking, Lev Menand, Morgan Ricks

Faculty Scholarship

The only profit-seeking business enterprises chartered by a federal government agency are banks. Yet there is barely any scholarship justifying this exception to state primacy in U.S. corporate law.

This Article addresses that gap. It reinterprets the National Bank Act (NBA) – the organic statute governing national banks, the heavyweights of the financial sector – as a corporation law and recovers the reasons why Congress wrote this law: not to catalyze private wealth creation or to regulate an existing industry, but to solve an economic governance problem. National banks are federal instrumentalities charged with augmenting the money supply – a …

Discharging The Discharge-For-Value Defense, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Despite its massive size, the corporate debt market is often considered a sleepy refuge for the risk-averse. Yet, corporate debt contracts are often mind-numbingly detailed. That complexity – when coupled with the financial stakes in play – can be a recipe for calamity. And in late 2020, calamity struck in the form of an accidental $1 billion payoff sent to Revlon Inc.’s distressed creditors – not by Revlon itself but rather by Citibank, the administrative agent for the loan. When several lenders refused to return the cash, Citibank commenced what many reckoned would be a successful (if embarrassing) lawsuit to …

Corporate Commitment To International Law, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

Corporations are increasingly important actors in international law. But vital questions underlying this development have long gone unanswered: How and why do corporations commit to international law?

This article constructs a general account of business interaction with international legal obligation and suggests that a gateway to demystifying this persistent puzzle lies in corporate opinio juris.

Corporate opinio juris describes a company's subscription to a rule of international law, even though the company is not technically bound by that rule. This subscription functions as a kind of pledge that, once made, has sway over the company and its peers and symbiotically …

Minority Oppression And The Llc: Manere V. Collins, The Uniform Act, And Comment 701, Daniel S. Kleinberger

Faculty Scholarship

For many decades, the law of closely-held businesses was the law of closely-held corporations. For entrepreneurs and attorneys, the corporate liability shield was the key desideratum, and before the advent of limited liability companies the corporation was essentially the only game in town. Unfortunately, for many decades the liability shield came with a potentially dangerous price for minority owners. The traditional corporate norms of majority rule, coupled with the minority shareholders’ inability to exit the enterprise, empowered majority shareholders to “oppress” minority shareholders or defeat such shareholders’ “reasonable expectations.” The “lock-in” phenomenon compounds the minority’s vulnerability; it is …

The Thai Foreign Business Act An Analysis Of Pathways And Obstacles For Foreign Investors, Fabian Sonntagbauer

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

ในโลกยุคโลกาภิวัฒน์ที่เพิ่มขึ้นประเทศต่างๆต่างพึ่งพาการลงทุนโดยตรงจากต่างประเทศเพื่อกระตุ้นการเติบโตทางเศรฐกิจ อย่างไรก็ตามประเทศไทยก็มีความต้องการที่จะปกป้องผู้ค้าและผู้ให้บริการจากชาวต่างชาติที่จะเข้ามายึดครองตลาด แนวคิดพื้นฐานนี้ได้เริ่มวางรากฐานมากว่า 50 ปีที่แล้วและแสดงให้เห็นถึงลักษณะของกฎหมายการประกอบธุรกิจของชาวต่างด้าวมาจนถึงทุกวันนี้ พระราชบัญญัติประกอบธุรกิจของคนต่างด้าวได้ถูกตราขึ้นเพื่อส่งเสริมการแข่งขันและสนับสนุนเศรฐกิจ อย่างไรก็ดีการค้าและการให้บริการมีข้อกำหนดอย่างเข้มงวดสำหรับชาวต่างชาติ ดังนั้นจึงนำมาสู่คำถามในงานวิจัยดังต่อไปนี้: ข้อจำกัดทางธุรกิจสำหรับชาวต่างชาตินั้นมีความได้สัดส่วนเพื่อให้บรรลุเป้าหมายของกฎหมายหรือไม่? เพื่อจุดประสงค์ดังกล่าวจุดมุ่งหมายของงานวิจัยนี้จึงมุ่งที่จะหาคำตอบถึงกฎเกณฑ์ที่ชาวต่างชาติจะสามารถได้รับอนุญาตให้เข้าสู่ตลาดและข้อห้ามต่างๆนั้นมีขอบเขตครอบคลุมไว้เพียงใด หลังจากได้มีการวิเคราะห์พระราชบัญญัติประกอบธุรกิจของคนต่างด้าวขอบเขตของข้อห้ามต่างๆจะได้รับการประเมินตามความเพียงพอในการบรรลุวัตถุประสงค์ งานวิจัยนี้ระบุถึงทางเลือกต่างๆโดยการวิเคราะห์พระราชบัญญัติประกอบธุรกิจของคนต่างด้าวของไทยและข้อกำหนดเบื้องต้นในการขอรับใบอนุญาตประกอบธุรกิจของคนต่างด้าว การส่งเสริมและสนับสนุนโดยคณะกรรมการส่งเสริมการลงทุนที่มีอำนาจอนุญาตให้ประกอบกิจการบางอย่างและให้สิ่งจูงใจได้มีการนำเสนอไว้ในงานวิจัยนี้ด้วยเช่นกัน งานวิจัยนี้ใช้การวิเคราะห์เปรียบเทียบกับกฎหมายของประเทศออสเตรียและสหภาพยุโรป และสนับสนุนการผ่อนคลายข้อจำกัดในการประกอบธุรกิจของต่างชาติ

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents.

The Corporate Contract And The Internal Affairs Doctrine, Mohsen Manesh

American University Law Review

In the landmark case Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the validity of a corporate charter provision restricting the rights of shareholders to bring federal securities law claims. Although rights arising under federal securities law lie beyond the internal affairs doctrine, which has traditionally defined the boundaries of state corporate law, the Salzberg court ruled that such rights may be regulated by the “corporate contract,” created by state corporate law and comprised of a corporation’s charter and bylaws. Embracing contractarian precepts, the Salzberg court rejected the lower Chancery Court’s concession theory of the corporate contract as inextricably bound …

Adolf Berle’S Corporate Conscience, Elizabeth Sepper, James D. Nelson

Seattle University Law Review

In this contribution to the symposium on “Corporate Capitalism and the City of God,” we bring Adolf Berle’s distinctive views of morality in corporate life into contemporary conversations about corporate religion. Today’s debates over corporate religious exemptions tend to gravitate toward an entity view of conscience focused on the moral integrity of institutions or an associational view keyed to shareholders’ deep commitments. The foremost corporate law scholar of his day, Berle instead conceived of corporate conscience as a “public consensus” guiding and bounding managerial decision-making. Although he would have sympathized with efforts to integrate faith and business, he would have …

The Professionalization Of Compliance: Its Progress, Impediments, And Outcomes, James A. Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tort Immunity In The Pandemic, Betsy J. Grey, Samantha Orwoll

Indiana Law Journal

The Covid-19 pandemic set off a public health emergency that quickly brought doctors and other health care providers to the front line, while shuttering businesses throughout the United States. In response to the emergency, the federal and state governments rapidly created broad protections from tort liability for health care providers. To encourage businesses to reopen, some states have also provided liability protection for businesses from personal injury suits brought by patrons and employees. Congress is considering similar protections for businesses as it contemplates further aid packages. Some industries, like nursing homes and universities, are lobbying for specific immunity. This Essay …

The Inchoate Meaning Of “Covered Security” Under The Securities Act Of 1933 – A Look At A Bank “In Organization”, Michael D. Waters

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Towards Shareholder Vote On Equity Issuances, Niccolò Calvi

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents and Special Thanks.