Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Systematic Stewardship: It's Up To The Shareholders – A Response To Profs. Kahan And Rock, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

As the author of an article entitled “Systematic Stewardship,” I read Professors Kahan and Rock’s article “Systematic Stewardship with Tradeoffs” (K&R) with considerable interest. I acknowledge the limits on deep asset manager engagement with sources of systematic risk in light of present institutional arrangements and the politics of the moment. Yet I think the most important move in the K&R analysis — the privileging of a “single firm focus” in corporate law instead of a “portfolio firm focus” — simply doesn’t account for the evolution that has already occurred in law and practice.

Long before the development of index funds, …

Debt Textualism And Creditor-On-Creditor Violence: A Modest Plea To Keep The Faith, Eric L. Talley, Sneha Pandya

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we argue that debt textualism played a key role in laying the groundwork for our present malaise by encouraging contracts to become increasingly bloated, complex, and rigid up to the point of buckling completely. The dense contractual landscape wrought by debt textualism, when freshly populated with a calculating coterie of financial mercenaries, has transformed corporate lending markets into an elaborate and costly contest of Hunger Games-worthy contractual “gotcha” where (a) lenders scour loan agreements for unappreciated loopholes to undercut borrowers; (b) borrowers do the same in an attempt to counteract lenders; and (c) permutated coalitions from …

การบังคับใช้คำสั่งของสหภาพยุโรปว่าด้วยว่าด้วยการตรวจสอบสถานะความยั่งยืนขององค์กรนอกอาณาเขต: ศึกษากรณีสิทธิแรงงานเมียนมาร์, เน โม โม อุ้

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

ผลกระทบจากการปฏิวัติฤดูใบไม้ผลิของเมียนมาได้ทำลายความพยายามทางเศรษฐกิจและสังคมของประเทศ ส่งผลกระทบต่อชีวิตของประชาชนทุกคน วิทยานิพนธ์นี้เน้นย้ำถึงชีวิตของแรงงานในภาคอุตสาหกรรมเสื้อผ้าของเมียนมาที่ถูกเอารัดเอาเปรียบเนื่องจากการขาดการคุ้มครองสิทธิแรงงานที่มีประสิทธิภาพจากรัฐบาล และสำรวจวิธีการทางเลือกในการปกป้องแรงงาน คำสั่งของสหภาพยุโรปเกี่ยวกับความรับผิดชอบต่อความยั่งยืนขององค์กร (Directive of Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence - EU Directive) ได้รับการอนุมัติโดยสภายุโรปเมื่อเร็ว ๆ นี้ และขณะนี้อยู่ในขั้นตอนการตีความโดยประเทศสมาชิก คำสั่งนี้บังคับใช้และทำให้การดำเนินการด้านความรับผิดชอบต่อสิทธิมนุษยชน (HRDD) สำหรับบรรษัทข้ามชาติเป็นสิ่งถูกกฎหมาย โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่ง คำสั่งนี้กำหนดให้บรรษัทต้องดูแลแนวปฏิบัติการคุ้มครองสิทธิมนุษยชนตลอดห่วงโซ่คุณค่า และรับผิดชอบหากมีการละเมิดสิทธิมนุษยชนเกิดขึ้นในห่วงโซ่คุณค่านั้น วิทยานิพนธ์นี้ประเมินว่าคำสั่งนี้สามารถใช้เป็นทางเลือกในการปกป้องสิทธิของแรงงานเมียนมาได้หรือไม่ การวิเคราะห์ชี้ว่าในทางทฤษฎี ขอบเขตที่กว้างขวางของคำสั่งนี้สามารถครอบคลุมเมียนมาได้ และดังนั้น ข้อกำหนด HRDD ที่บังคับใช้ตามคำสั่งของสหภาพยุโรปอาจมีศักยภาพในการให้การคุ้มครองสิทธิแรงงานที่มีประสิทธิภาพสำหรับแรงงานเมียนมา

Eliminating Cash Bail In Washington State—Amending Criminal Rule 3.2, Simran Kaur

Seattle University Law Review

This Note discusses the following three parts. Part I provides an overview of the cash bail system, its history, and its contemporary use in Washington state. Part II presents the effects of bail on pretrial release, analyzing low-income and racial inequalities and the adverse impacts it can have on the accused. Part III focuses on solutions and alternatives to the cash bail system, using other states as case studies.

Promoting Corporate Diversity: The Uncertain Role Of Institutional Investors, Jill Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

Two developments are having an impact on corporate decisions. One is the increased engagement by institutional intermediaries and a shift in the focus of that engagement from corporate governance to environmental and social issues. The other is a heightened societal awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues, particularly the importance of diversity in corporate leadership. This Article considers the intersection between the two. It describes how institutional investors have focused their attention on increasing diversity in corporate leadership, the potential motivations for that focus, and the impact of that focus, to date. It highlights the tensions that result from …

America’S Hidden Citizens: The Untold Stories Of The Unconscionable Deportations Of Its International Adoptees, Halley Cody

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses how the U.S. should rectify the harms it has perpetrated on non-citizen adoptees by amending the current deportation statutes to prevent their deportation. Part I addresses the history of adoption in the U.S. and related effects on immigration law. Part II highlights the stories of Adam Crapser and Philip Clay, who were adopted by American families who failed to naturalize them as minors, and who were subsequently deported after they sustained criminal records. Part III examines the policy goals behind deportation as a consequence of criminal convictions, as well as remedies instituted to prevent unwarranted deportation and …

Inadequate Privacy: The Necessity Of Hipaa Reform In A Post-Dobbs World, Katherine Robertson

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Comment will provide an overview of HIPAA and the legal impacts of Dobbs. Part II will discuss the anticipatory response to the impacts of Dobbs on PHI by addressing the response from (1) the states, (2) the Biden Administration, and (3) the medical field. Part III will discuss the loopholes that exist in HIPAA and further address the potential impacts on individuals and the medical field if reform does not occur. Finally, Part IV will argue that the reform of HIPAA is the best avenue for protecting PHI related to reproductive healthcare.

"Grossly Negligent Utilities," "Unimaginable Property Damage" And The Scope Of Liability Insurers' Duty To Indemnify Subrogated Property Insurers - Probative And Empirical Inferences From Courts' Divided Subrogation And Indemnification Decision, Willy E. Rice

Faculty Articles

Each year, extreme weather, natural disasters and allegedly "grossly negligent" investor-owned utilities concurrently destroy property, persons and lives. In the wake, billions of dollars are lost. Given utilities' general immunity under the judicially created filed-rate or filed-tariff doctrine, residential and commercial owners are precluded from filing ordinary negligence actions against utilities. Thus, many injured consumers try to settle their property-loss claims with their insurers. Some property insurers satisfy the "make-whole" doctrine and cover all losses. Most insurers, however, refuse to settle any claim. Or, they partially compensate the insureds. Yet, an overwhelming majority of property insurers are increasingly filing subrogation …

Fair Value As Process: A Retrospective Reconsideration Of Delaware Appraisal, William Wilson Bratton

Articles

This Article reconsiders the jurisprudence of fair value under Delaware's appraisal remedy, placing recent cases in historical perspective and offering a novel account. Its central observation is that appraisal has developed into a process jurisprudence rather than jurisprudence devoted to the articulation of an entitlement. As such it defies expectations and excites the wrath of academic commentators looking for a more conventional, rights-based evolution. There is a nominal entitlement: the cases at all times announce that shareholder dissenters may pursue going concern value (as opposed to third party sale value) as the measure of fair value. But the Delaware courts …

The Irrelevance Of Delaware Corporate Law, Robert J. Rhee

UF Law Faculty Publications

Delaware corporation law is dominant in America. If the effects of efficient rules are incorporated as information by an efficient capital market, the preferred choice of Delaware could evince the deliberate selection of better laws. Superior law as a product of state competition is the central argument for corporate law federalism. Despite the spirited debate on the race to the bottom or the top, a recognition of a “Delaware premium” to firm value is scant. This article conducts a longitudinal study of valuations. It analyzes the market values and stock prices of public Fortune 500 companies over the five-year period …

The Foundation Of The Theory Of Law And Business, James E. Holloway Professor (Retired)

American University Business Law Review

The theory of law and business needs a jurisprudential foundation ensuring and enhancing fact sensitivity, analytical scrutiny, and methodological order in making lawful and examining unlawful decisions, plans and practices, recognizing unethical and other normative breaches of lawful decisions, and assessing the impact of law on business and its organizations and disciplines. This Article consists of eight parts explaining the explanatory, analytical, and methodological nature of the jurisprudential foundation and its ability to enable and support the theory of law and business in ascertaining and understanding legality, illegality, normative values, and the impact of law on business. Part II extends …

No Harm No Foul?: The Remnants Of Pure Consumer Harm In Monopsony Cases Under The Sherman Act, William Jackson

American University Business Law Review

Part II of this Comment discusses the contested development of the consumer harm standard under the antitrust laws, the economic underpinnings of monopsonies as opposed to traditional monopolies, and the problems that courts have faced (or more frequently ignored) when deciding monopsony cases under the Sherman Act. Part III analyzes how courts that have abandoned a strict requirement of consumer harm are better able to conform with the true purpose of the Sherman Act. Part IV recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court must formally disavow the consumer harm standard in monopsony cases, or Congress must amend the Sherman Act to …

Diversity Disclosures: Unconstitutionally Compelled Speech By The Sec, Steven Cleveland

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

Contract Production In M&A Markets, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, Matthew Jennejohn, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Contract scholarship has devoted considerable attention to how contract terms are designed to incentivize parties to fulfill their obligations. Less attention has been paid to the production of contracts and the tradeoffs between using boilerplate terms and designing bespoke provisions. In thick markets everyone uses the standard form despite the known drawbacks of boilerplate. But in thinner markets, such as the private deal M&A world, parties trade off costs and benefits of using standard provisions and customizing clauses. This Article reports on a case study of contract production in the M&A markets. We find evidence of an informal information network …

Is "Public Company" Still A Viable Regulatory Category?, George S. Georgiev

Faculty Articles

This Article suggests that the ubiquitous “public company” regulatory category, as currently constructed, has outlived its effectiveness in fulfilling core goals of the modern administrative state. An ever-expanding array of federal economic regulation hinges on public company status, but “public company” differs from most other regulatory categories in that it requires an affirmative opt-in by the subject entity. In practice, firms today become subject to public company regulation only if they need access to the public capital markets, which is much less of a business imperative than it once was due to the proliferation of private financing options. Paradoxically, then, …

101 Lawyers: Attorney Appearances In Twitter V. Musk, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

In summer 2022, Twitter sued Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over his refusal to close his agreed-to $44 billion acquisition of the social-media company. Twitter v. Musk had the makings of corporate law’s trial of the century. Leading law firms represented Twitter, Musk, and third parties in a dispute with enormous financial, social, and political implications. In the lead up to trial, however, Musk relented and closed the deal. The corporate trial of the century was a bust, over almost as soon as it began.

But in the meantime, in Twitter’s eighty-six days …

The Public’S Companies, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

This Essay uses a series of survey studies to consider how public understandings of public and private companies map into urgent debates over the role of the corporation in American society. Does a social-media company, for example, owe it to its users to follow the free-speech principles embodied in the First Amendment? May corporate managers pursue environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) policies that could reduce short-term or long-term profits? How should companies respond to political pushback against their approaches to free expression or ESG?

The studies’ results are consistent with understandings that both public and private companies have greater public …

The Market For Corporate Criminals, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

This Article identifies problems and opportunities at the intersection of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate crime and compliance. In M&A, criminal successor liability is of particular importance, because it is quantitatively less predictable and qualitatively more threatening to buyers than successor liability in tort or contract. Private successor liability requires a buyer to bear bounded economic costs, which can in turn be reallocated to sellers via the contracting process. Criminal successor liability, however, threatens a buyer with non-indemnifiable and potentially ruinous punishment for another firm’s wrongful acts.

This threat may inhibit the marketability of businesses that have criminal exposure, …

Disclosure Procedure, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

Securities disclosure is a human process. Each year, public companies collectively spend over fifteen million hours producing disclosures that undergird an equities market with tens of trillions in market capitalization. The procedures they follow in doing so affect whether their disclosures contain misstatements or omissions—errors that can cause trading losses for investors, and litigation for issuers. Yet despite the importance of the disclosures that firms produce, the literature says little about how they do it, including whether they are spending too much, too little, or just enough on their disclosure procedures. To fill that gap, this Article uses original surveys …

To Have Or Have Not: The Limits Of Comply-Or-Explain Governance In An American Exchange, Johnson A. Salisbury Jr.

Emory Law Journal

In 2020, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (“Nasdaq”) proposed a comply-or-explain governance rule to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), aimed at increasing diversity in companies listed on its exchange. The resulting listing rule—approved by the SEC in 2021—was met with a mixed chorus of cheers and jeers from the public and regulated companies. Missing from that chorus, however, was an analysis of the effectiveness of Nasdaq’s approach in using a flexible, predominantly international comply-or-explain governance model to regulate the companies listed on its exchange.

Framed as a disclosure code, Nasdaq’s Listing Rule 5605(f)(2) requires listed companies …

Money Creation And Bank Clearing, Nadav Orian Peer

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Like many other countries, the U.S. money supply consists primarily of deposits created by private commercial banks. How we understand bank money creation matters enormously. We are currently witnessing a debate between two competing understandings. On the one hand, a long-standing conventional view argues that bank money creation originates in individual market transactions. Based on this understanding, the conventional view narrowly limits the scope of banking regulation to market failure correction. On the other hand, authors in a new legal literature emphasize the public aspects of bank money creation, characterizing it as a “public franchise,” a “public-private partnership,” and part …

Gamestopped: How Robinhood’S Gamestop Trading Halt Reveals The Complexities Of Retail Investor Protection, Neal F. Newman

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Should brokers have the unfettered right to restrict investor trading? GameStop, a brick-and-mortar video game retailer, had been experiencing declining revenues since 2016. However, GameStop saw its share price climb almost 1000 percent in the span of a one- week period from January 21, 2021 to January 27, 2021 due to retail investors buying significant amounts of GameStop shares during that period. Melvin Capital, a hedge fund, ended up losing billions as they were betting that GameStop shares would lose value instead of increase—a practice referred to as short selling. On January 28, 2021, brokers inexplicably halted trading on GameStop …

The Battle With Big Tech: Analyzing Antitrust Enforcement And Proposed Reforms, Youngjae Lee, Morgan Hagenbuch

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Nicholas Keenan, Senya Merchant, Clara Lane

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Don’T Let The Green Grass Fool You: Green Contingent Convertible Bonds And Their Role In The Pursuit Of A Sustainable Economy, Eyolf Aaro

UC Law Business Journal

This paper exposes some prominent issues that arise when banks label their contingent convertible bonds (CoCos) as “green,” and proposes a mechanism to improve green CoCos as climate change mitigation instruments. The green label is weakly protected due to regulatory requirements for capital instruments issued by banks. Current and proposed green bond frameworks, when applied to standard green bonds are insufficient in ensuring real environmental impacts from the bonds, are not prepared for the novelty of labeling CoCos as green. The result is a financial instrument through which issuing banks unsuccessfully try to achieve both regulatory and environmental aims. The …

The Collapse Of The Turnover-Proof Business Model: Combatting A Labor Crisis, Simran Thiara

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Attack On Antitrust: Preventing A Grim Future For Anime Streaming, Michael L. Cederblom

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

A Vision Of The Anti-Racist Public Corporation, Steven A. Ramirez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

The publicly traded corporation rightly exemplifies the great potential of legal infrastructure to advance macroeconomic growth and human development. Left to its current legal and regulatory frameworks, however, it will fuel inequality and the replication of racial hierarchy indefinitely. Taking affirmative action to broaden participation of our population at all levels of the public firm will open its ability to fund human ingenuity to all. This would vindicate the essential public purpose of the legal infrastructure governing the public corporation. It would also place capitalism itself on a firmer social foundation through the creation of a more cohesive and productive …