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Articles 271 - 300 of 301
Full-Text Articles in Commercial Law
Neo-Brandeisianism And The New Deal: Adolf A. Berle, Jr., William O. Douglas, And The Problem Of Corporate Finance In The 1930s, Jessica Wang
Seattle University Law Review
This essay revisits Adolf A. Berle, Jr. and The Modern Corporation and Private Property by focusing on the triangle of Berle, Louis D. Brandeis, and William O. Douglas in order to examine some of the underlying assumptions about law, economics, and the nature of modern society behind securities regulation and corporate finance in the 1930s. I explore Douglas and Berle’s academic and political relationship, the conceptual underpinnings of Brandeis, Berle, and Douglas’s critiques of modern finance, and the ways in which the two younger men—Berle and Douglas—ultimately departed from their role model, Brandeis.
Foreword: In Berle’S Footsteps, Charles R.T. O'Kelley
Foreword: In Berle’S Footsteps, Charles R.T. O'Kelley
Seattle University Law Review
On the weekend of November 6–8, 2009, scholars from around the world gathered in Seattle for a symposium—In Berle’s Footsteps—celebrating the launch of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law and Society. As founding director of the Berle Center, I described our undertaking: “It is with a profound sense of obligation to the legacy that has been entrusted to my care, that I announce the launching of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law and Society. It is a privilege to follow in Berle’s footsteps.”
Opening Remarks, Chancellor William B. Chandler Iii
Opening Remarks, Chancellor William B. Chandler Iii
Seattle University Law Review
Law is, in many ways, a backwards-looking field. We litigate over facts that have already occurred, challenge deals that have already been signed, and apply rules of decision based on previously-established precedent or statutes already enacted. To the extent that this Center and the symposium reflect on Berle’s work, they too are an exercise in looking back. Indeed, some might say the establishment of a Center named in Berle’s honor is a monument to the past.
Revisiting Berle And Rethinking The Corporate Structure, Kelli A. Alces
Revisiting Berle And Rethinking The Corporate Structure, Kelli A. Alces
Seattle University Law Review
Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means painted what remains a defining portrait of corporate law. The separation of ownership and control they described and the agency costs it causes are still a central concern of the law of corporate governance. For that reason, Berle’s work is relevant nearly eighty years after its publication. Seemingly forgotten, however, is that Berle’s enduring description of the corporate structure was published before most of today’s corporate law was in place. His work preceded the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and even preceded the dominance of Delaware common law in …
Power Without Property, Still: Unger, Berle, And The Derivatives Revolution, Cristie Ford, Carol Liao
Power Without Property, Still: Unger, Berle, And The Derivatives Revolution, Cristie Ford, Carol Liao
Seattle University Law Review
We are in a time when the notion of property is in flux. The derivatives revolution has shattered the “atom of property” well beyond what was originally imagined in 1932 by Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means. This disaggregation has had fascinating, and often adverse, effects on corporate law and securities regulation. Moreover, the phenomenon has had the unexpected effect of permitting some parties that already possess considerable social, economic, and political power to accumulate even more.
The New Financial Assets: Separating Ownership From Control, Tamar Frankel
The New Financial Assets: Separating Ownership From Control, Tamar Frankel
Seattle University Law Review
In The Modern Corporation and Private Property, Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner Means wrote about the separation of ownership from control in corporations. They noted that the interests of the controlling directors and managers can diverge from those of the shareholder owners of the firm. . . . There are those who consider such a decoupling beneficial. Others express the same concern that Berle and Means have expressed. And depending on what one focuses on in viewing the pluses and minuses of these separations, one could reach different conclusions. I reach a number of conclusions. First, the separation of …
Then And Now: Professor Berle And The Unpredictable Shareholder, Jennifer G. Hill
Then And Now: Professor Berle And The Unpredictable Shareholder, Jennifer G. Hill
Seattle University Law Review
Shareholders, and the relationship between shareholders and management, lay at the heart of Professor Berle’s scholarship. The goal of this Article is to compare the image of shareholders emerging from The Modern Corporation and Private Property and the Berle/Dodd debate with a range of contemporary visions of the shareholder that underpin some international regulatory responses to recent financial debacles, from Enron to the current global financial crisis. As the Article dis- cusses, these recent developments in the era of financial crises have prompted a reevaluation of the traditional image of the shareholder—and the role of the shareholder in the modern …
Berle And The Entrepreneur, Charles R.T. O'Kelley
Berle And The Entrepreneur, Charles R.T. O'Kelley
Seattle University Law Review
In the first and last four chapters (“the Five Chapters”) of The Modern Corporation and Private Property, Adolf Berle, Jr. describes in sweeping terms a fundamental transformation of the American economy. . . . Writing more than ten years before Berle, another seminal scholar, Frank Knight . . . developed a theory of the entrepreneur as part of his larger effort to more carefully explain the theoretical underpinnings of a free-market economy. . . . Given Knight’s prominence and the fact that Knight apparently reached dramatically different conclusions than did Berle concerning the consequences flowing from separation of ownership …
The Birth Of Corporate Governance, Harwell Wells
The Birth Of Corporate Governance, Harwell Wells
Seattle University Law Review
Part I of this Article briefly examines the concept of “corporate governance” and argues for dating the concept’s origins to the debates of the 1920s. Part II then moves on to examine early scholarly and popular discussions of the separation of ownership and control. After surveying the historical developments that produced the recognizably modern corporate economy around the turn of the century, it examines early scholarly and popular discussions of the separation of ownership and control, focusing on three major thinkers, Louis D. Brandeis, Walter Lippmann, and Thorstein Veblen. It argues that, while each of these authors examined the separation …
Monitoring To Reduce Agency Costs: Examining The Behavior Of Independent And Non-Independent Boards, Anita Anand, Frank Milne, Lynnette Purda
Monitoring To Reduce Agency Costs: Examining The Behavior Of Independent And Non-Independent Boards, Anita Anand, Frank Milne, Lynnette Purda
Seattle University Law Review
Berle and Means’s analysis of the corporation—in particular, their view that those in control are not the owners of the corporation—raises questions about actions that corporations take to counter concerns regarding management’s influence. What mechanisms, if any, do corporations implement to balance the distribution of power in the corporation? To address this question, we analyze boards of directors’ propensity to voluntarily adopt recommended corporate governance practices. Because board independence is one way to enhance shareholders’ ability to monitor management, we probe whether firms with independent boards of directors (which we define as boards with either an independent chair or a …
Securities Intermediaries And The Separation Of Ownership From Control, Jill E. Fisch
Securities Intermediaries And The Separation Of Ownership From Control, Jill E. Fisch
Seattle University Law Review
The Modern Corporation & Private Property is a paradigm-shifting analysis of the modern corporation. The book is perhaps best known for the insights of Berle and Means about the separation of ownership from control and the consequences of that separation for the allocation of power within the corporation. The Berle and Means story focuses on the shareholder as the owner of the corporation. Berle and Means saw the mechanism of centralized management—in which the shareholder retains the economic interest but not the control rights associated with ownership—as threatening the conception of shareholder interests in terms of property rights. In particular, …
The Modern Corporation As Social Construction, Mark S. Mizruchi, Daniel Hirschman
The Modern Corporation As Social Construction, Mark S. Mizruchi, Daniel Hirschman
Seattle University Law Review
Classic works, Mark Mizruchi and Lisa Fein argued, share a particular fate. Authors often cite classic works without reading them—or without reading them carefully. . . . Yet perhaps no single work fits the above description better than one of the most important books on the large corporation ever published: Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means’s The Modern Corporation and Private Property. One can speculate that few works in the social sciences have been as often cited and as little read. As a consequence, we would expect The Modern Corporation to be a good candidate for either selective interpretation or …
Corporate Power In The Public Eye: Reassessing The Implications Of Berle’S Public Consensus Theory, Marc T. Moore, Antoine Rebérioux
Corporate Power In The Public Eye: Reassessing The Implications Of Berle’S Public Consensus Theory, Marc T. Moore, Antoine Rebérioux
Seattle University Law Review
We analyze Berle’s overall corporate governance project in accordance with what we see as its four core sub-themes: (A) the limitations of external market forces as a constraint on managerial decision-making power; (B) the desirability of internal (corporate) over external (market) actors in allocating corporate capital; (C) civil society and the public consensus as a continuous informal check on managerial decision-making power; and (D) shareholder democracy (as opposed to shareholder primacy or shareholder wealth maximization) as a socially instrumental institution. We seek to debunk the popular misconception that Berle’s early work was a defense of the orthodox shareholder primacy paradigm …
Tracking Berle’S Footsteps: The Trail Of The Modern Corporation’S Last Chapter, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter
Tracking Berle’S Footsteps: The Trail Of The Modern Corporation’S Last Chapter, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter
Seattle University Law Review
Readers game enough to work through all three hundred pages of The Modern Corporation and Private Property looking for insights on corporate law today encounter two, apparently contradictory, lines of thought. One line, set out in Books II and III, resonates comfortably with today’s shareholder-centered corporate legal theory. Here the book teaches that even as ownership and control have separated, managers should function as trustees for the shareholders and so should exercise their wide-ranging powers for the shareholders’ benefit. The other line of thought emerges in Books I and IV, where The Modern Corporation encases this shareholder trust model in …
Rethinking The Separation Of Ownership From Management In American History, Kenneth Lipartito, Yumiko Morii
Rethinking The Separation Of Ownership From Management In American History, Kenneth Lipartito, Yumiko Morii
Seattle University Law Review
In <em>The Modern Corporation and Private Property</em>, Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means would use AT&T as a prime example of what they saw as a dangerous new trend, the replacement of ownership-based capitalism with giant corporations controlled by a small group of propertyless managers. Indeed, AT&T became Berle and Means’ favorite example. . . . As we shall see, however, the claim that AT&T was a leading example of the separation of ownership from management is incomplete. More importantly, the common interpretation of Berle and Means’ work is mistaken, placing the emphasis incorrectly on the number of shareholders and reading …
Berle’S Vision Beyond Shareholder Interests: Why Investment Bankers Should Have (Some) Personal Liability, Claire Hill, Richard Painter
Berle’S Vision Beyond Shareholder Interests: Why Investment Bankers Should Have (Some) Personal Liability, Claire Hill, Richard Painter
Seattle University Law Review
This essay, published in a symposium on the work of Adolf Berle, approaches the Berle-Dodd debate from the perspective that corporate managers have responsibilities beyond pursuing the interests of shareholders. Stock based executive compensation, designed to align managers’ interests with those of shareholders, has, in the investment banking industry in particular, failed to avert, and may have caused, managers (in this case, bankers) to take excessive risks that in the present financial crisis inflicted great damage on creditors and on society as a whole. We describe here the broad outlines of a proposal that we will discuss in future publications …
Enumerating Old Themes? Berle’S Concept Of Ownership And The Historical Development Of English Company Law In Context, Lorraine E. Talbot
Enumerating Old Themes? Berle’S Concept Of Ownership And The Historical Development Of English Company Law In Context, Lorraine E. Talbot
Seattle University Law Review
This paper offers some tentative suggestions as to why Berle’s work has been read and interpreted so selectively in the United Kingdom. I suggest that this must be partly attributable to the historical developments in English company law that entrenched the notion of shareholder ownership claims. Specifically, unincorporated associations’ normative values—that members are owners and there is no distinction between small organizations with no share dispersal and large organizations with wide share dispersal—have a continuing influence on this entrenched notion of shareholder ownership claims. First, I provide an overview of the origins of English company law. Next, I address how …
State Regulation Of Franchising: The Washington Experience Revisited, Douglas C. Berry, David M. Byers, Daniel J. Oates
State Regulation Of Franchising: The Washington Experience Revisited, Douglas C. Berry, David M. Byers, Daniel J. Oates
Seattle University Law Review
Thirty-six years ago, and one year after Washington became the second state in the nation to enact a statute regulating franchise relationships, Professor Donald S. Chisum wrote the seminal article on franchising in Washington, State Regulation of Franchising: The Washington Experience. Professor Chisum's article has been one of the few reference sources for Washington franchise law, and it has been the primary source relied on by courts addressing claims under Washington's Franchise Investment Protection Act (FIPA). Since Professor Chisum originally published his article, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has promulgated and amended regulations governing the sale of franchises nationally, …
State Consumer Protection Statutes: An Alternative Approach To Solving The Problem Of Predatory Mortgage Lending, Jessica Fogel
State Consumer Protection Statutes: An Alternative Approach To Solving The Problem Of Predatory Mortgage Lending, Jessica Fogel
Seattle University Law Review
This article continues in Part II by defining predatory lending practices, identifying borrowers who are likely to face predatory lenders, and discussing the consequences of predatory lending. Next, Part III provides a background for existing federal regulation, again in reference to RESPA and TILA. Part IV discusses state legislative efforts to curb predatory lending and identifies the problems of inconsistency and federal exemptions that undermine these state statutes. Part V examines the elements of state consumer protection acts and unfair and deceptive acts or practices ("UDAP") statutes and their application to predatory practices. Part VI argues that, because consumer protection …
A Seller's Responsibilities To Remote Purchasers For Breach Of Warranty In The Sales Of Goods Under Washington Law, Thomas J. Holdych
A Seller's Responsibilities To Remote Purchasers For Breach Of Warranty In The Sales Of Goods Under Washington Law, Thomas J. Holdych
Seattle University Law Review
The article examines Washington law pertaining to a seller's obligations to a remote purchaser with respect to the quality of goods, attending in particular to the judicially created exceptions to the privity requirement. 20 Part II explores the reasons a seller may provide and a buyer may purchase a warranty, reasons that bear on resolution of the question whether the privity requirement should be retained. Parts III and IV analyze not only what warranty obligations a seller may have to a remote purchaser but also the theoretical bases for those obligations and the manner in which those obligations may be …
Explorations In The Classroom: A Book Review Of Secured Credit: A Systems Approach, Nathalie Martin
Explorations In The Classroom: A Book Review Of Secured Credit: A Systems Approach, Nathalie Martin
Seattle University Law Review
Students are often surprised by how much they enjoy commercial law. Anyone who finds either money or power interesting is likely to see the potential for fun in a class where these issues are discussed. In a capitalist society, "Money Law" reflects virtually all of our societal values in one way or another, reflects the culture of capitalism at work, and is "Law and Society" in the broadest sense. While most people find it hard to get excited about secured transactions, this sentiment is not likely to last long if the teacher uses Secured Credit: A Systems Approach. Part …
Sweeping The E-Commerce Patent Minefield: The Need For A Workable Business Method Exception, William Krause
Sweeping The E-Commerce Patent Minefield: The Need For A Workable Business Method Exception, William Krause
Seattle University Law Review
This Comment will trace the history of patent protection for methods of doing business over the past two decades, then it will inspect the problems that this protection has wrought: litigation, increased barriers to e-commerce entrepreneurs, and the threat of a less vibrant electronic marketplace. Because each traditional method of protecting intellectual property -- patent, copyright, and trade secret -- has strengths and limitations in protecting advancements in software technology, this Comment will examine the relative benefits of each method. Finally, this Comment will suggest a simple, easily applied test that will offer patent protection to true innovations while reserving …
Signposts To Oblivion? Meta-Tags Signal The Judiciary To Stop Commercial Internet Regulation And Yield To The Electronic Marketplace, Craig K. Weaver
Signposts To Oblivion? Meta-Tags Signal The Judiciary To Stop Commercial Internet Regulation And Yield To The Electronic Marketplace, Craig K. Weaver
Seattle University Law Review
The focus of this Comment is not merely to analyze the role of the judiciary in Meta-Tag litigation specifically, but also to use Meta- Tags as a lens with which to examine the potential effect of judicial activism on Internet commerce in general. The first portion of this analysis focuses on the applicability of federal trademark infringement and dilution laws in Meta-Tag abuse suits. The next portion of the article evaluates why market regulation of Meta-Tag abuse is the correct course of action, in the short-term, for ensuring the growth of electronic commerce. The article concludes with a description of …
Enforcing Washington Judgments In British Columbia: New "Reciprocating State" Status For Washington Will Make Enforcement Easier, Kenneth O. Eikenberry, James M. Johnson, Laura L. Wulf
Enforcing Washington Judgments In British Columbia: New "Reciprocating State" Status For Washington Will Make Enforcement Easier, Kenneth O. Eikenberry, James M. Johnson, Laura L. Wulf
Seattle University Law Review
Canada has long been one of the most important trading partners for the United States. Canada, primarily British Columbia, is the second most important international trading partner of Washington State. In 1986, trade between Washington and Canada exceeded $3.5 billion dollars. This trade relationship will be enhanced by the fact that both the United States Senate and the Canadian Parliament have ratified the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect on January 1, 1989. By its terms, this agreement drastically reduces or eliminates tariffs on commerce between the two nations within the next ten years. As a result, …
An Analytical View Of Recent "Lending Of Credit" Decisions In Washington State, Hugh Spitzer
An Analytical View Of Recent "Lending Of Credit" Decisions In Washington State, Hugh Spitzer
Seattle University Law Review
This Article first presents an analytic framework for assessing government actions that present possible violations of article VIII, sections 5 and 7, and then analyzes five recent cases interpreting those provisions.
Dependent Covenants In Commercial Leases: Hindquarter Corp. V. Property Development Corp., Tracy R. Antley Faust
Dependent Covenants In Commercial Leases: Hindquarter Corp. V. Property Development Corp., Tracy R. Antley Faust
Seattle University Law Review
This Note demonstrates that the Washington Supreme Court correctly applied contract principles to the Hindquarter lease dispute. The Note first reviews the historical development of dependent covenants in both residential and commercial contexts. After setting out this important background information, the Note examines Hindquarter and the three factors that influenced the Washington Supreme Court in following the dependent covenants trend: (1) material inducements to execute the lease; (2) the intent of the parties; and (3) equity and policy considerations. The Note concludes that, even though the landlord prevailed in Hindquarter, commercial tenants stand to gain most from the supreme …
Forfeiture Clauses In Land Installment Contracts: Time For Equitable Foreclosure, Donna R. Roper
Forfeiture Clauses In Land Installment Contracts: Time For Equitable Foreclosure, Donna R. Roper
Seattle University Law Review
This Comment will trace the history of the Washington courts' decision to deny foreclosure by judicial sale in land installment contracts with forfeiture clauses and will demonstrate the viability and preferability of foreclosure by judicial sale as an equitable remedy for a defaulting buyer. The Comment will also describe how other states, either legislatively or judicially, have resolved the inequity of forfeitures.
Limitations On Creditors' Rights To Require Spouses' Signatures Under The Ecoa And Washington Community Property Law, Todd M. Johnson
Limitations On Creditors' Rights To Require Spouses' Signatures Under The Ecoa And Washington Community Property Law, Todd M. Johnson
Seattle University Law Review
This article examines the federal regulations' interaction with Washington community property law to determine when a creditor can require the signature of a Washington applicant's spouse on either a loan instrument or security agreement in five common situations: (1) a married applicant's request for credit secured by community property, (2) a married applicant's request for credit secured by separate property, (3) a married applicant's request for general unsecured credit, (4) a married applicant's request for unsecured credit in specific reliance upon his or her income flow, and (5) a married applicant's request for unsecured credit in specific reliance upon the …
Consumer Liability For Deficiencies In Washington, Edith R. Warkentine
Consumer Liability For Deficiencies In Washington, Edith R. Warkentine
Seattle University Law Review
This article focuses on a secured party's right to hold a debtor liable for a deficiency when resale of the goods does not satisfy the remaining obligation.
Definition Of A Security: Risk Capital And Investment Contracts In Washington, Michael E. Stevenson, John J. O'Leary, Iii
Definition Of A Security: Risk Capital And Investment Contracts In Washington, Michael E. Stevenson, John J. O'Leary, Iii
Seattle University Law Review
The addition of the risk capital definition to Washington's securities law will expand regulation to many transactions that in the past were excluded. Although its full application is unforeseeable, the risk capital definition should apply to financing arrangements in the formation of clubs, associations, and cooperatives. Practitioners must be keenly aware that ventures not traditionally defined within Washington's securities regulations many now fall under the risk capital definition of a security.