Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Iosco's Response To The Financial Crisis, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Thoughts On The Porous Boundary Between Ordinary And Extraordinary Fraud, Miriam H. Baer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dodd-Frank's Say On Pay: Will It Lead To A Greater Role For Shareholders In Corporate Governance?, Randall S. Thomas, Alan R. Palmiter, James F. Cotter

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

"Say on pay" gives shareholders an advisory vote on a company's pay practices for its top executives. Beginning in 2011, Dodd-Frank mandated such votes at public companies. The first year of "say on pay" under the new legislation may have changed the dialogue and give-and-take in the shareholder-management relationship at some companies, particularly on the question of executive pay.

We study the evolution of shareholder voting on "say on pay" - beginning in 2006 as a fledgling shareholder movement to get "say on pay" on the corporate ballot, evolving as a handful of companies and later the financial firms receiving …

Selectica Resets The Trigger On The Poison Pill: Where Should The Delaware Courts Go Next?, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Since their invention in 1982, shareholder rights plans have been the subject of intense controversy. Rights plans, or as they are known more pejoratively “poison pills,” enable a target board to “poison” a takeover attempt by making it prohibitively expensive for a bidder to acquire more than a certain percentage of the target company’s stock (until recently 15-20%). Not surprisingly, some commentators view rights plans as an inappropriate means of shifting power from shareholders to the board of directors.

In this Article, we critically examine Delaware law on the use of shareholder rights plans and propose a new approach to …

Uncertainty, Dangerous Optimism, And Speculation: An Inquiry Into Some Limits Of Democratic Governance, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

People are often optimistic. Nearly fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, but one survey found that 100 percent of individuals planning to get married believed they would never get divorced. Most people think they drive better than the average driver, and at one university, ninety-four percent of professors placed themselves in the top fifty percent in terms of teaching skills. We often seem to think we are like the youth of Garrison Keillor’s fictional hometown Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average.”

This is not always a bad thing. Optimism can be advantageous. Without optimism, Columbus might …

Addressing The Tension Between Directors' Duties And Shareholder Rights - A Tale Of Two Regimes, Sean Vanderpol, Edward J. Waitzer

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

There is a basic tension inherent in the regulation of corporations between the role to be played by boards and that to be played by shareholders. Boards have the statutory responsibility to manage the business and affairs of the corporation, and owe an express duty to act in the best interests of the corporation. Shareholders, however, are the ultimate ‘owners’ of the corporation, and have the ability to elect and remove directors. Canadian courts and securities regulators have long struggled with this tension in determining the roles to be played by each in transactions that pose the potential for conflicts …

Contract And Dispossession, Deborah W. Post

Scholarly Works

This Essay, part of a collection of essays on the same theme, argues that contract law has become an instrument of oppression and dispossession rather than liberation. Having offered a critique, the challenge then is to consider whether it is possible to restore the liberatory potential of contract. The symposium, Post-Marxism, Post-Racialism & Other Fables of the Dispossession, was an invitation to consider the contemporary relevance of Marxist theory.

There are two reference points in this cultural critique. One is the importance of social position in a jurisprudence that embraces objectivity; the uncritical and unreflective reliance on hegemonic social …

Using Nonprofits To Serve Charitable Goals Of Social Businesses In The United States: Circumventing The Lack Of Recognition Of The Social Business Model In The Federal Tax Code, Gautam Jagannath

Pace Law Review

This Article considers the possibility of reincorporating a social business as a tax-exempt nonprofit. An analysis of the costs and benefits is performed with an eye toward federal tax law. First, I discuss the potential problems with running a social business as an exempt nonprofit. There are federal regulations that get in the way of making this a savvy decision. Second, I posit that a social business can benefit from devising a parallel exempt organization with similar or identical charitable goals. There are a few ways to do this and I consider the pros and cons. Finally, I consider the …

Codes Of Corporate Governance: A Review, Nolan Haskovec

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

The U.S. was one of the first nations in the world to concern itself with the governance of its publicly-listed corporations. But it stopped well short of developing authoritative general standards of corporate governance. By contrast, many of the world’s other markets have by now agreed to some sort of ‘official’ principles for the governance of their quoted companies.

A key reason often cited for why the U.S. lacks a single, authoritative national code of corporate governance2 is the general resistance to centralized regulation of corporate law, which is subject to state rather than federal statutes. But several other major …

Vive La Petite Difference: Camp, Obama, And Territoriality Reconsidered, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The recent tax reform proposals by House Ways and Means Committee Chair David Camp, R-Mich., and by President Obama seem to offer starkly contrasting visions of how to reform the taxation of foreign-source income earned by U.S.-based multinational enterprises.1 Both acknowledge the problem, which is that U.S.-based MNEs currently have more than $1 trillion of ‘‘permanently reinvested’’ income offshore, which they cannot bring back to the U.S. without incurring a 35 percent tax penalty. However, they seem to offer radically different solutions: Under the Camp proposal, a participation exemption will enable U.S.-based MNEs to bring back the income without paying …

Regulation Fd Will Result In Poorer Disclosure And Increased Market Volatility, Joanna E. Barnes

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corporate Criticism On The Internet: The Fine Line Between Anonymous Speech And Cybersmear, Scot Wilson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Income Taxation Of Business Enterprises: Cases, Statutes, Rulings, Sergio Pareja, Richard A. Westin, Ricahrd C.E. Beck

Faculty Book Display Case

This fourth edition covers the basics of the federal income taxation of partnerships and corporations including the taxation of LLCs, LLPs and S corporations. In addition, it alludes to a short list of other business enterprises. It is designed to be taught as two major components: partnerships and corporations. Both components use the traditional "cradle-to-grave" approach. Because of their practical importance, the book makes reference to Social Security taxes and estate taxes. There is no discussion of State income taxes.

Although the book is comparatively short, the materials are thorough and are heavily supplemented with problems.

The cases have been …

Front Matter

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

No abstract provided.

Business Courts And Interstate Competition, John F. Coyle

William & Mary Law Review

Over the past two decades, specialized trial courts that hear business disputes primarily or exclusively have been established in nineteen states. To explain the recent surge of interest in these courts, policymakers and scholars alike have cited the process of interstate competition. Specifically, these commentators have argued that business courts serve, among other purposes, to attract out-of-state companies to expand their business, reincorporate, or litigate disputes in the jurisdiction that created the business court.

This Article critically evaluates each of these theories. It argues first that business courts do not serve to attract companies from other states because business expansion …

Were "It" To Happen: Contract Continuity Under Euro Regime Change, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

One way or another, the European Monetary Union (EMU) is apt to endure. The prospect of continuation under the precise contours of the regime as we presently find it, however, is anything but certain. Hence many investors and other actual or prospective contract parties are likely to remain skittish until matters grow clearer. This skittishness, importantly, can itself hamper the prospect of expeditious European recovery. Addressing particular sources of ongoing uncertainty about EMU prospects can itself therefore aid in the project of recovery.

This Essay accordingly aims to impose structure upon one particular, and indeed particularly complex, source of uncertainty …

How Close Is “Too Close”, Lana Ciaramella

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Lana Ciaramella writes an article on trade dress infringement. Her article discusses the standards of trade dress infringement, how they are applicable to private label products and how the courts have modified their view of trade dress infringement over time. She focuses on the landmark decision in McNeil Nutritionals, LLC v. Heartland Sweetners, which set a new precedent for treatment of trade dress infringement by private label manufacturers of brand name products.

Profile - The Gates Foundation Leed Platinum Seattle Headquarters, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

In this first article in his series looking at not-for-profits as urban neighbors, Professor James Hagy, Director of The Rooftops Project, visits with the Gates Foundation at its recently opened LEED Platinum Seattle headquarters campus.

Tort Law—Tortious Interference With Business Expectancy – A Trap For The Wary And Unwary Alike, Larry Watkins

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Despite remaining stable and unchanged over the last decade, tortious interference has also remained problematic in Arkansas. Although tortious interference with contract in Arkansas suffers from many ailments, this note focuses on interference with business expectancy, discussing interference with contract only as necessary. Specifically, the note argues that tortious interference in Arkansas should be formally separated into two distinct rules—interference with contract and interference with business expectancy—in order to keep courts from mixing terms and standards from both rules when addressing only one cause of action. This note further proposes that the improper element of tortious interference in Arkansas should …

America's Energy Dependency: Will Government Regulation Of Caffeine Bring The Caffeine Companies To A Crash?, Rakesh J. Parikh

William & Mary Business Law Review

In light of Americans’ growing love affair with caffeinated products, this Note considers not only the possibility of future regulation of those products, but also the effect that regulation would have on caffeinated product-producing companies. While there is no certainty that such regulation is in our future, the regulation of market-similar products like tobacco and alcohol, and regulations abroad on heavily caffeinated drinks, suggest American regulation of caffeinated products to be a distinct possibility. This would be a serious concern for caffeine companies, who could face reduced access to target markets as a result of FDA-imposed limitations, whether by age …