Law and Economics Commons^™

Disciplining Managers: Shareholder Cooperation In The Shadow Of Shareholder Competition, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Internal Governance Standards, Suramya Balachandran

LLM Theses and Essays

Corporate control has a variety of connotations; it can mean the group of individuals who are regarded as “the control” of a corporation, the office of a corporation, or a fiduciary relationship between the office holder and the corporation. Corporate control transactions are changes in a corporation’s structure motivated by the desire for growth of the corporation, such as setting up new divisions, acquiring or being acquired by another corporation, selling or buying stock, and entering or leaving markets. Control transactions have been a successful business practice since the 1980s. The first part of this thesis analyzes the benefits of …

The Relevant Market In European Merger Law, Benedicte Haubold

LLM Theses and Essays

Due to the rapid acceleration of merger movements in the 1980s, the adoption of new merger regulation was a must for the European market. Before the new merger regulation was adopted in 1989, the European Commission used to apply the general competition rules of the Rome Treaty when dealing with mergers. The Commission used to interpret Articles 85 and 86 of the Rome Treaty as a means to condemn mergers that would lead to an abuse of a dominant position at a European level; at that time, there was an absence of complete and systematic control as far as structural …

New Capital For Bankruptcy Reorganizations: It's The Amount That Counts,, Charles Adams

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Strategic Alliances: Emerging Trends In Future Corporate Business, Naresh Menghraj Gehi

LLM Theses and Essays

A strategic alliance is an arrangement for economic collaboration between firms at the same level of distribution, involving an exchange of critical skills aimed at buffering the core business strategy, technology, or markets of the partners. Research indicates that the care and thought of the strategic alliance partners increases with the importance of the venture to the strategic objectives of the entity. This paper describes the importance of strategic alliances in today’s competitive world. It examines the benefits of entering into strategic alliances, the legal implications of strategic alliances, and various industries where strategic alliances are dominant. Finally, this paper …

Shareholder Dividend Options, Zohar Goshen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes a legal norm that shifts discretion over dividend policy from managers to the capital markets (i.e., shareholders). State corporate law could effect such a shift by adopting a rule that mandates shareholder control over the dividend decision. The rule would require every firm to adopt an option mechanism that, at predetermined dates, provided each of the firm's shareholders with the right to select either cash or stock dividends in an amount equal to the shareholder's pro rata share of the firm's earnings. For instance, the law might require that, once a year, the firm offer to each …

Foreword, J. Dennis Hynes

Publications

No abstract provided.

Decoupling Sales Law From The Acceptance-Rejection Fulcrum, Jody S. Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

The determination of whether the buyer has accepted or rejected goods provides the sales law solution to the problems of allocating burden of proof, assigning duties to salvage goods in failed transactions, and reducing systematic undercompensation. But one doctrine is unlikely to provide the best solution to each of these distinct problems. Decoupling the rules addressing burden of proof, salvage, and undercompensation from the doctrines of acceptance and rejection, and thus from one another, would significantly improve sales law.

This strategy has a distinguished precedent in the history of sales law. Karl Llewellyn based his objection to the doctrine of …

Liberalization Of India’S Trade And Investment Policies: Pitfalls And Advantages For U.S. Firms Doing Business In India, Sanjiv Verma

LLM Theses and Essays

A rich history of trade and commerce ties America to India. This paper examines the contemporary trade issues between America and India, particularly in light of recent economic reforms in India. It inquires into and analyzes the various advantages India can provide for US businesses as a foreign investment destination. Various barriers to trade between these two nations are identified, such as tariff and nontariff barriers, quota restrictions, and infrastructural and social barriers. This paper gives a brief overview of some of the recent economic policy changes in India, suggests legislative and policy improvements required to attract more US investments …

Thinking To Be Paid Versus Being Paid To Think, Merritt B. Fox

Faculty Scholarship

In the first chapter of The Economic Structure of Corporate Law, Frank Easterbrook and Daniel Fischel make an arresting statement:

... [P]eople who are backing their beliefs with cash are correct; they have every reason to avoid mistakes, while critics (be they academics or regulators) are rewarded for novel rather than accurate beliefs. Market professionals who estimate these things wrongly suffer directly; academics and regulators who estimate wrongly do not pay a similar penalty. Persons who wager with their own money may be wrong, but they are less likely to be wrong than are academics and regulators, who are wagering …

Policing Employment Contracts Within The Nexus-Of-Contracts Firm, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Government Liability For Economic Losses: The Case Of Regulatory Failure, David S. Cohen

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Compensation claims against provincial and federal governments are largely a product of the second half of the 20th century. The initial surge of cases after the enactment of the federal Crown Liability Act in 1953--mirrored also in developments at the provincial level-- were typically "private" tort claims. Indeed a significant percentage of claims against the federal government continue to be nothing more than automobile accident, occupier liability claims and lawsuits arising out of similar relatively minor bureaucratic error. Recently, however, as a result of both the imagination of litigators and the growth of the regulatory state, claims against governments have …

Benign Restraint: The Sec's Regulation Of Execution Systems, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

To the handful of traders who founded the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1792 – and perhaps even to the securities traders of the 1960's – today's securities markets would be virtually unrecognizable. New communications and data processing technologies, the globalization of investment portfolios, and a surge in trading volume have created new needs and possibilities. As a result, revolutionary advances have occurred in the design and performance of execution systems: the technologies (computers, telephones, modems) and formats (auction-based stock exchanges, dealer-based "over-the-counter" markets, computerized single price auctions) that traders use to conduct trades. These advances enable trades on …

An Economic Justification For Corporate Reorganizations, Charles Adams

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Corporations, Markets, And Courts, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The times they are a changin'. Vanguard firms of the 1980s takeover boom have announced associate layoffs and salary freezes because business is down. Bankruptcy and corporate reorganization are the hot new specialties as reflected in law school class size and law firm entrepreneurialism. Acquisition activity has fallen dramatically from the halcyon days of the 1980s. The gargantuan headline-grabbing hostile bid is now rare. In particular, the "boot-strap, bust-up" highly leveraged transaction that so engaged the passions of corporate managers and raiders now seems part of the history of corporate finance rather than its future.

Many forces have played a …

The Corporate Entity In An Era Of Multinational Corporations, Phillip Blumberg

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Corporate Control: Markets And Rules, Caroline Bradley

Articles

No abstract provided.

State Takeover Statutes Revisited, Richard A. Booth

Michigan Law Review

I have a confession to make. The title of my article that appeared recently in this review, The Promise of State Takeover Statutes, was deliberately chosen for its shock value. Since few if any reflective works have supported state takeover statutes, it occurred to me that a title suggesting there was something positive in them might get someone's attention. Clearly it did. In a recent piece entitled Missing the Point About State Takeover Statutes, Professors Lyman Johnson and David Millon take issue with my title. I say that they take issue with my title because it does not …

Coase Defends Coase: Why Lawyers Listen And Economists Do Not, Stewart Schwab

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Firm The Market and The Law by Ronald Coase

Populist And Economic V. Feudal: Approaches To Industry Self-Regulation In The United States And England, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

English and American courts treat industry self-regulation very differently. American courts have been generally slow to acknowledge the legitimacy of self-regulation. Once they accept the need for some degree of self-regulation, however, the American courts, under the growing influence of the Chicago school, have become increasingly willing to uphold the regulation on the grounds of economic efficiency. The English courts have had less difficulty recognizing the legitimate role industry self-regulation plays. In determining the reasonableness of the regulatory scheme, however, the English courts adopt a protectionist approach which favours the status quo within the industry. These distinctions, the author argues, …

The Mandatory Structure Of Corporate Law, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

It has become standard in the law and economics literature to refer to the corporation as a "nexus of contracts." On this view, the corporate entity is nothing more than a gathering point for a series of contracts, express and implied, among assorted actors: shareholders, bondholders, managers, employees, suppliers and customers, for example. This view rankles some sensibilities, because the economists' conception of a "contract" as an arrangement between two or more actors supported by reciprocal expectations and behavior is far broader than the lawyer's conception, which focuses on the existence of judicially cognizable duties and obligations. Thus the lawyer, …

Cable Traffic And The First Amendment Must-Carry Under A Diversity Approach And Antitrust As Possible Alternative, Bruno Vandermeulen

LLM Theses and Essays

Recent technological progress in the field of telecommunications has greatly changed the competitive structure between broadcasters, cable operators, and telephone companies. The legal and economic environment for these media participants has shifted, and new problems have arisen. One major problem is the enhanced threat of concentration of media corporations, as corporate bigness becomes desirable and the number of diversified owners of media outlets continues to decrease. This paper analyzes broadcasting regulations and subsequent case law to show the concern by the legislature and regulatory agencies to preserve diversity in opinion and media-ownership through emphasis on “localism” and a “marketplace of …

The Uncertain Case For Takeover Reform: An Essay On Stockholders, Stakeholders And Bust-Ups, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professor John Coffee considers under what circumstances there could be a legitimate role for state regulation of tender offers. Professor Coffee suggests that state anti-takeover laws could (but do not) function to protect other stakeholders, including corporate management, in the target corporation where the implicit contract between the corporation and these stakeholders has broken down. He advances a model of corporate directors as mediators between shareholders and stakeholders in order to protect the expectations embodied in a web of implicit and explicit contracts.

Professor Coffee suggests that takeovers would be more palatable if the interests of stakeholders …

Rethinking The Rule Against Corporate Privacy Rights: Some Conceptual Quandries For The Common Law, 20 J. Marshall L. Rev. 607 (1987), Anita L. Allen

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intragroup (Upstream, Cross-Stream, And Downstream) Guaranties Under The Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, Phillip Blumberg

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Collective Bargaining And The Coase Theorem, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Legal Factors In The Acquisition Of A United State Corporation: Litigation By Hostile Targets, Johan E. Droogmans

LLM Theses and Essays

Acquisitions of United States corporations have become increasingly complex takeover contests, where bidders and target corporations are forced into offensive and defensive litigation strategies to protect their respective interests. Targets often assert that the bidders have violated federal or state securities laws, federal antitrust laws, federal margin regulations, federal and state regulatory systems, and federal anti-racketeering laws. These lawsuits are primarily based on the principal federal regulation of takeovers in section 14(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and the Williams Act. Target litigation is customary, but entails certain disadvantages; a lawsuit rarely stops an offer, is expensive, …

Limited Liability And Corporate Groups, Phillip Blumberg

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Takeover Defense Tactics: A Comment On Two Models, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Lewis A. Kornhauser

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most important debates of current corporate law practice and scholarship is about the appropriate role of target management confronted with a takeover bid. The controversy turns on the identification of a criterion for evaluating takeovers and target management defensive tactics. An influential body of opinion contends that maximization of shareholder wealth is the appropriate criterion because, first, traditional notions of fiduciary duty generally require managers to act in the shareholders' interest, and, second, shareholder wealth maximization is seen as the best available proxy for social wealth maximization. On this view, takeovers are desirable because they can increase …

The Role Of Efficiency Justifications In U.S.-American And West German Merger Control Law: A Comparison, Christian Westerhausen

LLM Theses and Essays

When merger control laws first emerged in the United States and West Germany in the early 1900s, some businessmen and economists argued that the efficiency of businesses was impeded by antimerger laws. They contended that only very large businesses could realize significant efficiencies, be internationally competitive, and attain technological progress. This paper analyzes the role that these efficiency arguments had on the laws in West Germany and the United States, respectively. German law mainly upheld the idea that preservation of competition was most important for business efficiency, but also included a provision that firms could put forward the social desirability …