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Articles 31 - 60 of 113
Full-Text Articles in Contracts
Corporate Governance As A School Of Social Reform, Ciarán O’Kelly
Corporate Governance As A School Of Social Reform, Ciarán O’Kelly
Seattle University Law Review
In this paper, I present a vision of the corporation as a moral person. I point to “the separation of ownership and control” as a moment when the corporation broke away from the moral lives of ownermanagers. I then draw out the manner in which we can speak of the company as a moral person. Finally, through a discussion of social reporting in two British banks, I point to a shift in how this moral personhood is articulated, with the rise of corporate governance—or doing business well—as its own foundation of corporate responsibility. I propose a view of corporate responsibility …
The Common Link In Failures And Scandals At The World’S Leading Banks, Justin O’Brien, Olivia Dixon
The Common Link In Failures And Scandals At The World’S Leading Banks, Justin O’Brien, Olivia Dixon
Seattle University Law Review
This Article argues that both the root cause of the crisis and the route to restoring trust and confidence is to be found in ascertaining how to regulate culture across mandates, processes, and use of discretion. Part II identifies the internal and external failings of four of the most recent global banking scandals within the CEDAR matrix. Part III discusses the regulatory challenges faced when compliance serves no practical function and the consequent material risk to market integrity. This Article concludes by suggesting that it is unsustainable for regulation to be decided, implemented, and monitored at a national level. Global …
Shareholder Social Responsibility, David Millon
Shareholder Social Responsibility, David Millon
Seattle University Law Review
Amidst concerns about the negative effects on long-run value and competitiveness, one overlooked consequence of short-termism is its impediment to corporate social responsibility (CSR).In this Article, Part II examines the short-termism phenomenon, first from the point of view of investors and then from that of corporate managers, and summarizes widely held views about the social costs of short-termism. Part III then shifts the focus to the impact of shorttermism on CSR, a problem that has been largely overlooked, and develops two theories or models of CSR: the “ethical” and the “strategic.” Part III also explains how short-termism presents a significant …
The Financialization Of The U.S. Corporation: What Has Been Lost, And How It Can Be Regained, William Lazonick
The Financialization Of The U.S. Corporation: What Has Been Lost, And How It Can Be Regained, William Lazonick
Seattle University Law Review
As the U.S. economy struggles to recover from the Great Recession, the erosion of middle-class jobs and the explosion of income inequality have endured long enough to raise serious questions about whether the U.S. economy is beset by deep structural problems. My argument is that the employment problem that the United States now faces is largely structural. But the structural problem is not a labormarket mismatch between the skills that prospective employers want and the skills that potential workers have, as many economists have argued. Nor is the problem automation. Rather, the employment problem stems from changes in the ways …
The Modern Corporation Magnified: Managerial Accountability In Financial-Services Holding Companies, Anita K. Krug
The Modern Corporation Magnified: Managerial Accountability In Financial-Services Holding Companies, Anita K. Krug
Seattle University Law Review
This Article first recalls the primary contours of Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means’s acclaimed observations regarding the separation of ownership and control in the “modern corporation,” as well as their conclusions about the implications of those observations for the doctrine of shareholder primacy. Second, the Article describes how the activities of FSHCs generally differ from what we think corporations do and, certainly, from what Berle and Means conceived of as the purpose of corporations or, indeed, any business enterprise. Third, this Article articulates how those business activities render more acute the problem of the separation of ownership and control that …
Toward A More Resilient Financial System?, Joanna Gray
Toward A More Resilient Financial System?, Joanna Gray
Seattle University Law Review
The concept of “resilience” in the context of financial systems calls for closer analysis, as most of the current efforts to reshape financial systems seek to render them more resilient. Resilience has become a necessary complement to the paradigm shift taking place in global financial regulation toward “macroprudential” regulation—a term used to describe a new viewing platform and decisionmaking plane for financial regulation. From this new perspective, regulators can address the state of the financial system as a whole, as well as its component parts. This Article seeks to illustrate how legal and regulatory measures that foster resilience have become …
Financial Hospitals: Defending The Fed’S Role As A Market Maker Of Last Resort, José Gabilondo
Financial Hospitals: Defending The Fed’S Role As A Market Maker Of Last Resort, José Gabilondo
Seattle University Law Review
During the last financial crisis, what should the Federal Reserve (the Fed) have done when lenders stopped making loans, even to borrowers with sterling credit and strong collateral? Because the central bank is the last resort for funding, the conventional answer had been to lend freely at a penalty rate against good collateral, as Walter Bagehot suggested in 1873 about the Bank of England. Acting thus as a lender of last resort, the central bank will keep solvent banks liquid but let insolvent banks go out of business, as they should. The Fed tried this, but when the conventional wisdom …
The Long Road Back: Business Roundtable And The Future Of Sec Rulemaking, Jill E. Fisch
The Long Road Back: Business Roundtable And The Future Of Sec Rulemaking, Jill E. Fisch
Seattle University Law Review
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) has faced a number of challenges in the last few years. Judge Rakoff’s decision in Citigroup, the Madoff scandal, and the Business Roundtable decision are just a few of the developments that have dealt lasting damage to the SEC’s reputation. Critics have scrutinized the agency’s decisionmaking on multiple fronts—from its enforcement policy to the quality of its rulemaking—and the SEC has largely come up short in the analysis. The once-revered top cop of the securities markets has taken a hit, and it is unclear whether it can recover. The Business Roundtable decision …
The Future Of Shareholder Democracy In The Shadow Of The Financial Crisis, Alan Dignam
The Future Of Shareholder Democracy In The Shadow Of The Financial Crisis, Alan Dignam
Seattle University Law Review
This Article argues that the U.K. regulatory response to the financial crisis, in the form of “stewardship” and shareholder engagement, is an error built on a misunderstanding of the key active role shareholders played in the enormous corporate governance failure represented by the banking crisis. Shareholders’ passivity, rather than activity, has characterized the reform perception of the shareholder role in corporate governance. This characterization led to the conclusion that if only they were more active they would be more responsible “stewards” of the corporation. If, as this Article argues, shareholder activity was part of the problem in the banks, then …
Limits Of Disclosure, Steven M. Davidoff, Claire A. Hill
Limits Of Disclosure, Steven M. Davidoff, Claire A. Hill
Seattle University Law Review
One big focus of attention, criticism, and proposals for reform in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis has been securities disclosure. Many commentators have emphasized the complexity of the securities being sold, arguing that no one could understand the disclosure. Some observers have noted that disclosures were sometimes false or incomplete. What follows these issues, to some commentators, is that, whatever other lessons we may learn from the crisis, we need to improve disclosure. How should it be improved? Commentators often lament the frailties of human understanding, notably including those of everyday retail investors—people who do not understand or …
The Market For Corporate Control: New Insights From The Financial Crisis In Ireland, Blanaid Clarke
The Market For Corporate Control: New Insights From The Financial Crisis In Ireland, Blanaid Clarke
Seattle University Law Review
In an ever-changing legal and economic environment, it is incumbent on us to subject all such premises to scrutiny in order to consider their continued application. This Article considers the effect of the MCC on the management of Irish credit institutions in the run-up to the financial crisis. Part II sets the background by explaining how the MCC has become an integral part of takeover regulation in Europe. The weaknesses in the efficient market hypothesis, which underlie the MCC and are summarized in Part III, appear not to have undermined the theory’s credibility in the minds of public policy makers …
Banking And Competition In Exceptional Times, Brett Christophers
Banking And Competition In Exceptional Times, Brett Christophers
Seattle University Law Review
This Article has two main aims: to provide a critical consideration of this contemporary antitrust “revival” from an explicitly political–economic perspective and to point toward some theoretical resources that might facilitate such an assessment.Part II looks backward at the evolution and application of competition law in the banking sector over the relatively longue durée. In this Part, I invoke the concept of “exception” to understand how antitrust policy has developed, and my chief interlocutors are the perhaps unlikely figures of Giorgio Agamben and Karl Marx. Part III looks forward and considers the central question around which the recent resurgence of …
Conceptions Of Corporate Purpose In Post-Crisis Financial Firms, Christopher M. Bruner
Conceptions Of Corporate Purpose In Post-Crisis Financial Firms, Christopher M. Bruner
Seattle University Law Review
American “populism” has had a major impact on the development of U.S. corporate governance throughout its history. Specifically, appeals to the perceived interests of average working people have exerted enormous social and political influence over prevailing conceptions of corporate purpose—that is, the aims toward which society expects corporate decision-making to be directed. In this Article, I assess the impact of American populism upon prevailing conceptions of corporate purpose, contrasting its unique expression in the context of financial firms with that arising in other contexts. I then examine its impact upon corporate governance reforms enacted in the wake of the financial …
Shareholders And Social Welfare, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter
Shareholders And Social Welfare, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter
Seattle University Law Review
This Article addresses the questions of whether and how shareholders matter for social welfare, finding that different and contrasting answers have prevailed during different periods of recent history. Observers in the mid-twentieth century believed that the socioeconomic characteristics of real-world shareholders were highly pertinent to social welfare inquiries. But those observers went on to conclude that there followed no justification for catering to shareholder interest, for shareholders occupied elite social strata. The answer changed during the twentieth century’s closing decades, when observers came to accord the shareholder interest a key structural role in the enhancement of economic efficiency even as …
Central Bank-Led Capitalism?, Andrew Bowman Et Al.
Central Bank-Led Capitalism?, Andrew Bowman Et Al.
Seattle University Law Review
Since the first acute episode of financial crisis in autumn 2008, the world has manifestly changed in dramatic ways that reinforce skepticism and challenge the old assumptions of political economy. Hence this Article about central banks, whose pivotal role in post-crisis capitalism has not been adequately politically or theoretically addressed in any existing literature and can now be opened up by a conjunctural analysis that recognises uncertainty and mutability. There are several reasons why this is an intellectually and politically interesting task. Central banks have become an object of controversy and public attention after being pivotally involved in crisis management, …
Making Money: Leverage And Private Sector Money Creation, Margaret M. Blair
Making Money: Leverage And Private Sector Money Creation, Margaret M. Blair
Seattle University Law Review
Contrary to the beliefs of most macroeconomists, the financial sector in the United States has grown too large in the last few decades as a consequence of financial innovation that has encouraged the use of too much “leverage” (financing with debt) by financial institutions (as well as by consumers and other borrowers). In Part II, I connect the dots between excessive leverage, risk, and financial market volatility. In Part III, I explore the role that the “shadow-banking sector” has had in driving leverage. In Part IV, I explain why leverage at the level of financial institutions matters for the macroeconomy. …
The Governance And Disclosure Of The Firm As An Enterprise Entity, Yuri Biondi
The Governance And Disclosure Of The Firm As An Enterprise Entity, Yuri Biondi
Seattle University Law Review
During recent decades, the rapid pace of financial markets involving new modes of management, governance, and regulation has framed business firms. This corporate drift toward financialization is summarized under the “shareholder value” label. What do financial markets do? Unequivocally, they organize trading on shares that are securities: tradable financial entitlements established by law, which formalize expectations, and claims of financial rents paid by the issuing company. Actually, how continued quotation on share exchanges came to be the barometer of economic or social welfare is a different matter. The latter adoption has required quite a great leap from “the euthanasia of …
Rationales And Designs To Implement An Institutional Big Bang In The Governance Of Global Finance, Emilios Avgouleas
Rationales And Designs To Implement An Institutional Big Bang In The Governance Of Global Finance, Emilios Avgouleas
Seattle University Law Review
The colossal challenges facing international finance pertain to both its governance system and its dual utility and speculative functions, which have become ever more intertwined with the advent of financial innovation. In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a number of significant reforms are under way to address the second issue, including additional capital and liquidity requirements for banks, measures to battle interconnectedness in the financial sector, new resolution regimes that would allow banks to fail more easily, and stricter frameworks for bank supervision and monitoring of systemic risk. Yet limited progress has been made with respect to …
Framing Address: A Framework For Analyzing Financial Market Transformation, Steven L. Schwarcz
Framing Address: A Framework For Analyzing Financial Market Transformation, Steven L. Schwarcz
Seattle University Law Review
The title of this Symposium originally was “Rethinking Financial and Securities Markets.” It is, of course, somewhat presumptuous for scholars to try to rethink financial markets per se. Markets, including financial markets, are driven primarily by supply and demand. But scholars can and should try to influence the future of financial markets by rethinking their fundamental aspects. This Symposium presents work from leading scholars in the fields of law, economics, finance, and accounting. I will try to frame the discussion from the perspectives of these four disciplines. First, however, we need to identify what it is about financial markets that …
Legal Entities As Transferable Bundles Of Contracts, Kenneth Ayotte, Henry Hansmann
Legal Entities As Transferable Bundles Of Contracts, Kenneth Ayotte, Henry Hansmann
Michigan Law Review
The large, modern business corporation is frequently organized as a complex cluster of hundreds of corporate subsidiaries under the common control of a single corporate parent. Our Article provides new theory and supportive evidence to help explain this structure. We focus, in particular on the advantages of subsidiary entities in providing the option to transfer some or all of the firm's contractual rights and obligations in the future. The theory not only sheds light on corporate subsidiaries but also illuminates a basic function of all types of legal entities, from partnerships to nonprofit corporations. We show that when, as is …
A Complete View Of The Cathedral: Claims Of Tortious Interference And The Specific Performance Remedy In Mergers And Acquisitions Litigation, Luke Nikas, Paul B. Maslo
A Complete View Of The Cathedral: Claims Of Tortious Interference And The Specific Performance Remedy In Mergers And Acquisitions Litigation, Luke Nikas, Paul B. Maslo
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
A bank promises to lend several billion dollars to fund a buyer’s purchase of a target company. The buyer enters into a merger agreement with the target. Thereafter, the economy plummets, and the bank decides that breaching its contract with the buyer will cost less than performing. The buyer seeks specific performance. The target also sues the bank, alleging tortious interference with the merger agreement. Billions of dollars are on the line. This is the reality lived by many investment banks that committed to fund leveraged buyouts during the recent economic downturn. Most of these matters were resolved in private …
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Faculty Scholarship
In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …
The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French
Faculty Scholarship
As a result of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco which destroyed the city, a clause known as the “ensuing loss” clause was created to address concurrent causation situations in which a loss follows both a covered peril and an excluded peril. Ensuing loss clauses appear in the exclusions section of such policies and in essence they provide that coverage for a loss caused by an excluded peril is nonetheless covered if the loss “ensues” from a covered peril. Today, ensuing loss clauses are found in “all risk” property and homeowners policies, which cover all losses except for …
Debunking The Myth That Insurance Coverage Is Not Available Or Allowed For Intentional Torts Or Damages, Christopher French
Debunking The Myth That Insurance Coverage Is Not Available Or Allowed For Intentional Torts Or Damages, Christopher French
Faculty Scholarship
Over the years, a myth has developed that insurance coverage is not available or allowed for intentional injuries or damage. This myth has two primary bases: one, the “fortuity” doctrine, which provides that insurance should only cover losses that happen by chance; and two, public policy, which allegedly disfavors allowing insurance for intentional injuries or damage. This article dispels that myth. Many types of liability insurance policies expressly cover intentional torts including trademark infringement, copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, defamation, disparagement, and improper employment practices such as discrimination. In addition, punitive damages, which typically are awarded for intentional misconduct, are …
In-House Counsel’S Role In The Structuring Of Mortgage-Backed Securities, Steven L. Schwarcz, Shaun Barnes, Kathleen G. Cully
In-House Counsel’S Role In The Structuring Of Mortgage-Backed Securities, Steven L. Schwarcz, Shaun Barnes, Kathleen G. Cully
Faculty Scholarship
The authors introduce the financial crisis and the role played by mortgage-backed securities. Then describe the controversy at issue: whether, in order to own and enforce the mortgage loans backing those securities, a special-purpose vehicle “purchasing” mortgage loans must take physical delivery of the notes and security instruments in the precise manner specified by the sale agreement. Focusing on this controversy, the authors analyze (i) the extent, if any, that the controversy has merit; (ii) whether in-house counsel should have anticipated the controversy; and (iii) what, if anything, in-house counsel could have done to avert or, after it arose, to …
Mind Control: Firms And The Production Of Ideas, Anthony J. Casey
Mind Control: Firms And The Production Of Ideas, Anthony J. Casey
Seattle University Law Review
The central questions for economic theories of the firm concern how the production of a good is organized (in the market or within a firm) and why that organization prevails. Derivative to these questions, legal scholars ask how the law affects and is affected by any particular organizational structure. Emerging literature looks at these questions in connection with the law of intellectual property. The prevailing theories in that literature focus primarily, though not exclusively, on patent law and generally adopt a property-rights theory of the firm. Those theories, focusing on residual control and hold-up problems, have shown that as patent …
Theories Of The Firm And Judicial Uncertainty, Andrew S. Gold
Theories Of The Firm And Judicial Uncertainty, Andrew S. Gold
Seattle University Law Review
There is no necessary connection between academics’ theories of the firm and judicial theories of the firm. Economists and legal scholars may adopt one theory of the firm, and courts may adopt another. We might even predict this result. Judges are not economists, and as increasingly sophisticated theories of the firm emerge in the academic literature, judges are not well-positioned to keep pace with the evolving accounts. Indeed, judges may reasonably choose to adopt no theory at all. Given these premises, this Essay explores the relationship between academically developed theories of the firm and corporate legal doctrine. Legal scholars who …
Coase, Knight, And The Nexus-Of-Contracts Theory Of The Firm: A Reflection On Reification, Reality, And The Corporation As Entrepreneur Surrogate, Charles R.T. O'Kelley
Coase, Knight, And The Nexus-Of-Contracts Theory Of The Firm: A Reflection On Reification, Reality, And The Corporation As Entrepreneur Surrogate, Charles R.T. O'Kelley
Seattle University Law Review
Working within the nexus-of-contracts model, scholars have struggled to develop a rhetorical paradigm that accurately predicts or describes corporation law. This difficulty flows from twin flaws in the currently dominant model—the equation of the corporation and the firm and the exclusion of the entrepreneur. Coase and his progenitor, Frank Knight, saw the firm as having an “inside” and an “outside” and a distinct central actor—the entrepreneur. Contrary to the allocation of resources by the unconscious processes of the market fundamental to the perfect competition model favored by free-market, nexus-of-contracts theorists, Knight and Coase looked inside the firm and identified the …
Salomon Redux: The Moralities Of Business, Allan C. Hutchinson, Ian Langlois
Salomon Redux: The Moralities Of Business, Allan C. Hutchinson, Ian Langlois
Seattle University Law Review
In this Essay, we revisit the Salomon case and its related litigation not only from a legal standpoint but also from a broader moral perspective. 4 In the second Part, we offer a detailed context for and account of the Salomon litigation. The third Part focuses on the historical roots of the corporation and the judicial arguments in Salomon. In the fourth Part, we explore the moral and legal consequences of the Salomon decision. Throughout the Essay, our ambition will be not only to give the Salomon case a more contextual and richer spin but also to tackle the relationship …
Law And Legal Theory In The History Of Corporate Responsibility: Corporate Personhood, Lyman Johnson
Law And Legal Theory In The History Of Corporate Responsibility: Corporate Personhood, Lyman Johnson
Seattle University Law Review
This Article, the first of a multipart project, addresses the nature of corporate personhood, one area where law has played a central role in the history of corporate responsibility in the United States.1 The treatment will be illustrative, not exhaustive. Consistent with the theme of the larger project, the Article serves to make the simple but important point that a full historical understanding of corporate responsibility requires an appreciation of the law’s significant, if ultimately limited, contribution to the longstanding American quest for more responsible corporate conduct. On one hand, the spheres of law and corporate responsibility, although clearly complementary, …