Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Two Models Of Corporate Governance: Beyond Berle And Means, Lynne L. Dallas

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article introduces a new model of corporate governance, which challenges, as did Berle and Means, the conclusions drawn from the traditional ownership model. Rather than focusing upon the inefficiencies of the large complex firm resulting from the separation of share ownership and control, however, this new model, which I call the power model, focuses upon the political nature of decision making in the large corporation, which exists regardless of the identity of the entrepreneur.

Shareholders Versus Managers: The Strain In The Corporate Web, John C. Coffee Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Part I will seek to understand why firms trade in the stock market at a substantial discount from their asset value. It will answer that existing theories of the firm have not given adequate attention to a critical area where shareholders and managers have an inherent conflict, one that the existing structure of the firm does not resolve or mitigate. Despite the significant changes in the internal structure of the corporation over the last half century that have been described by business historians, there remains a deep internal strain between shareholders, on the one hand, and managers and employees, on …

Shareholders Versus Managers: The Strain In The Corporate Web, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

"We have entered the era of the two-tier, front-end loaded, bootstrap, bust-up, junk-bond takeover." —Martin Lipton

Until recently, takeovers typically involved larger firms digesting smaller firms, a process that most theorists have assumed was driven by the pursuit of synergistic gains. Lately, however, this dynamic has dramatically reversed itself. To a considerable extent, the large conglomerate is now the target, and such prototypical conglomerate firms as General Foods, Richardson-Vicks, Beatrice, Revlon, SCM, CBS,USX, and Anderson, Clayton and Co. have either been acquired or forced to restructure themselves within the last three years alone. The new bidder in turn tends to …

Regulating The Market For Corporate Control: A Critical Assessment Of The Tender Offer's Role In Corporate Governance, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Better answers often await better questions. In the wake of a recent series of provocative articles dealing with contested tender offers, several questions have been vigorously debated:

(1) Should management of the target company be allowed to resist a hostile tender offer in order to remain an independent company? Which, if any, of the various "shark repellent" measures by which a potential target can make itself unattractive to a bidder are justified?;

(2) If defensive tactics were generally forbidden, should the target company's management still be permitted to encourage competing bids thereby creating an auction?; and

(3) Do hostile takeovers …

Providing An Effective Remedy In Shareholder Suits Against Officers, Directors, And Controlling Persons, Michael H. Woolever

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Corporate officers, directors, and controlling persons occupy a fiduciary relationship toward the corporation and its shareholders in the exercise of control over corporate affairs. This fiduciary obligation requires that officers, directors, and controlling persons act in good faith and perform their offices in the best interests of the corporation and its shareholders and not to their own advantage. When this duty is breached, a shareholder may bring an action against these fiduciaries, either in his own name or derivatively for the benefit of the corporation. Under present law, however, it may be impossible for an American court to secure jurisdiction …

Corporations - Ratification Of Unauthorized Withdrawal Of Funds By An Officer Of A Corporation, Walter Probst Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The president of a corporation withdrew funds from the corporation with which to purchase stock for his own personal benefit. He used this money so as to save the brokerage cost of his securities. A great deal of the money was repaid a few days after its withdrawal. The board of directors, discovering these activities, approved all past actions and present loans of the president. Held, the attempted ratification by the board of directors did not relieve the president from his duty of accounting for the profits realized on the stock purchased with the funds, since there had not …

Corporations - Duty Of Director To Stockholder On Stock Exchange Sales

Michigan Law Review

The recent case of Goodwin v. Agassiz presents the problem of the duty owed by a director to existing and prospective stockholders in its most typical and difficult form. The defendants were president and general manager, respectively, as well as directors of the Cliff Mining Corporation which owned mineral lands in Northern Michigan. The stock of the corporation was listed on the Boston Stock Exchange. The defendants in their capacity of directors had knowledge of a geologist's report which forecast possible existence of copper deposits in the corporation's lands. The defendants were also directors of another mining corporation owning lands …

Corporations-Basis For Preemptive Rights

Michigan Law Review

Defendant corporation's authorized capital stock consisted of 800 shares of common stock, 76 shares of which remained unissued. Over the objection of the plaintiff, the directors of the corporation authorized the issue of 50 shares of the 76 to a salesman in satisfaction of a debt due him from the corporation, the remaining 26 shares to one of the directors for cash with which to meet corporate indebtedness. No contest for corporate control was afoot. No opportunity was given to the shareholders generally to purchase such shares. Later the faction of the individual defendants to whom said 26 shares had …

Publicity Of Accounts And Directors' Purchases Of Stock, A. A. Berle Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Two debates have been carried on in recent years, whose echoes are at present much before the attention both of the public and the courts. The older and quieter one, maintained in the law reviews and in a line of conflicting judicial decisions, concerns the duty, if any, resting on a corporate director who bought or sold shares of stock in his own corporation. The newer and more violent discussion, reverberating through the daily newspapers, the lay magazines, and the financial chronicles, has dealt with corporate accounts; whether they should be public and to what extent; and if not, how …