Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Director Liability For Corporate Crimes: Lawyers As Safe Haven?, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The fines and penalties assessed against corporations are running into the billions of dollars each year. Part of the reason is that the managers and employees of entrepreneurial organizations have inherent incentives to engage in conduct that exposes the entity to fines and penalties. This article considers the legal bases for shifting these law-enforcement losses back to directors who are actively involved in creating them, either because they approved or they deliberately ignored the corporation’s legal or regulatory violations (Part II). It then examines bases for shifting these losses back to directors even when their involvement in the non-compliance is …

The Curious Case Of Directors' And Officers' Liability For Supervision And Management: Exploring The Intersection Of Corporate And Tort Law, Martin Petrin

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The 1996 Arbitration And Conciliation Act: A Step Toward Improving Arbitration In India, Harpreet Kaur

UC Law Business Journal

This paper evaluates India's 1996 Arbitration and Conciliation Act and makes three points. First, it demonstrates that the Act improved the arbitration process since judicial intervention only occurs when necessary to police the process and to resolve and interpret ambiguities about Parliament's intent. Second, in spite of being a substantial improvement, the process can be even more effective in expediting the process with a few revisions. Arbitration in India can further improve if the arbitral tribunal had a more active role in dispute resolution. Finally, revising the act to only allow institutional arbitration is crucial for parties and attorneys to …

Comments: Uncertainty For Practitioners And The Judiciary As Well As The Need For A Minimum Standard Demonstrate That Fiduciary Duties Should Be Incorporated Into Maryland's Llc Act, Michael S. Spencer

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Can Come Under The Tarp, But First... The Bank Of America-Merrill Lynch Merger Was A Failure Of Corporate Governance, James K. Donaldson

Law Student Publications

In response to the financial credit crisis in the fall of 2008, Congress, the U.S. Treasury, and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors took unprecedented action to prevent both large and small financial institutions from insolvency. Ultimately, the Troubled Asset Relief Program was created to inject various banks with the cash necessary to prevent the banks' insolvency and the threat that bank failures posed to the nation's economy. In the midst of that crisis, Bank of America agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch. Each institution, in their individual capacity, received TARP funds from the Treasury several weeks after entering into the …

Corporate Environmental Social Responsibility: Corporate "Greenwashing" Or A Corporate Culture Game Changer?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article focuses on the extent to which unenforceable voluntary initiatives undertaken by corporations can change corporate behavior to make businesses more environmentally responsible, i.e. not only comply with the law, but to do more than the law actually requires of them. These initiatives, loosely gathered under the umbrella of a movement called corporate social responsibility (CSR), are often proposed by the government as a way to fill regulatory and enforcement gaps or by industry, often as an alternative to regulatory requirements. In each case, their goal is to improve the compliance record of businesses and, in some cases, to …

The Case For Employee Referenda On Transformative Transactions As Shareholder Proposals, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

This Comment describes and advocates for employee referenda as implemented through a SEC Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal. The proposal provides for a nonbinding referendum amongst all employees whenever the corporation's shareholders must vote to approve a merger, acquisition, sale of substantially all assets, or other transformative transaction. The purpose of the referendum is to provide employees with a voice in the transaction and to provide shareholders with a mechanism for tapping into employee sentiment. Because the referendum would be nonbinding, it is best viewed as an informational tool for shareholders and employees to use in policing management's transactions. Given the …

Shareholder Democracy And The Curious Turn Toward Board Primacy, Grant M. Hayden, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate law is consumed with a debate over shareholder democracy. The conventional wisdom counsels that shareholders should have more voice in corporate governance, in order to reduce agency costs and provide democratic legitimacy. A second set of theorists, described as “board primacists,” advocates against greater shareholder democracy and in favor of increased board discretion. These theorists argue that shareholders need to delegate their authority in order to provide the board with the proper authority to manage the enterprise and avoid short-term decision making.

In the last few years, the classical economic underpinnings of corporate law have been destabilized by a …

Accountable Care Organizations: A New New Thing With Some Old Problems, Thomas L. Greaney

All Faculty Scholarship

When pressed for evidence that the proposed health reform legislation will control costs, proponents invariably cite the numerous pilot programs and other innovations in Medicare payment policy contained in the bill. At first blush, the ACO model seems well designed to foster competition among providers. Not unlike health maintenance organizations and other integrated delivery forms, ACOs assume responsibility for coordinating care and thus have strong incentives to provide cost effective care and to do so in a manner that is transparent and hospitable to comparative shoppers. But at the same time, the path of ACO development could prove profoundly anti-competitive. …

Reply: Clawback To The Future, Miriam A. Cherry, Jarrod Wong

All Faculty Scholarship

In an earlier article also available on Scholarship Commons, Clawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures in an Era of Excessive Executive Compensation and Ponzi Schemes, Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 94, p. 368, 2009, Professors Miriam Cherry and Jarrod Wong set out an initial description and analysis of contractual clawback provisions. In this Reply, Profs. Cherry and Wong address three aspects of Michael Macchiarola's Response: its application of the clawback doctrine to the recoupment of executive compensation; the criticism that the clawbacks doctrine introduces latent subjectivity into contractual analysis; and the apparent operational difficulties in implementing clawbacks.

A Short History Of Tontines, Kent Mckeever

Faculty Scholarship

A tontine is an investment scheme through which shareholders derive some form of profit or benefit while they are living, but the value of each share devolves to the other participants and not the shareholder's heirs on the death of each shareholder. The tontine is usually brought to an end through a dissolution and distribution of assets to the living shareholders when the number of shareholders reaches an agreed small number.

If people know about tontines at all, they tend to visualize the most extreme form – a joint investment whose heritable ownership ends up with the last living shareholder. …

Aplikasi Al-Mudarabah Dan Al-Musyarakah Dalam Produk-Produk Perbankan Islam : Kajian Di Bank Muamalat Indonesia, Jakarta., Sarwedi Hasibuan

Student Works (2010-2019)

Abstrack

Business-Like: The Supreme Court's 2009-2010 Labor And Employment Decisions, Melissa Hart

Publications

The 2009-10 Term at the Supreme Court was a relatively quiet one for labor and employment law. While the Justices were in the news for decisions on corporate political donations and the Second Amendment, the Court’s work-related docket grabbed no headlines. In fact, though, the Court considered 7 work law cases this Term, in areas ranging from standards for arbitration agreements to employee privacy rights in new technology to time limitations for filing Title VII disparate impact claims. This article discusses the Court’s labor and employment cases for the Term. While they may not have made much news, several of …

The Anticipation Misconception, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Works

Many commentators and courts have cited to the Supreme Court decision of Hickman v. Taylor as the genesis of the work product doctrine and the requirement that, to be afforded protection, the material in question must be generated “in anticipation of litigation.” The oft quoted policy justification for the protection afforded is that attorneys should be allowed a “zone of privacy” within which to prepare their case for the client. This justification supports limiting protection only to work generated “in anticipation of litigation,” because, presumably, outside of this context there is no need for the “zone of privacy.” However, a …

Keynote Address: The Conflicted Trustee Dilemma, Steven L. Schwarcz

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Board’S Duty To Monitor, Eric J. Pan

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Carpe Crisis: Capitalizing On The Breakdown Of Capitalism To Consider The Creation Of Social Businesses, Celia R. Tayloe

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Sound Of Silence: The Continuing Legal Debate Over Class Action Rescission Under Tila, Jo Carrillo, Paul Kofoed

UC Law Business Journal

This paper analyzes federal law on the issue of whether consumers of mortgage products can sue as a class to rescind a mortgage loan under the Truth in Lending Act. Embedded in this question are deeper economic issues about the cost and availability of credit in the United States, and about who should bear the risk of faulty mortgage disclosures. The Truth in Lending Act governs these matters as an existing statutory scheme that provides pre-bankruptcy and pre-default remedies to consumers of credit.

A Crumbling Pyramid: How The Evolving Jurisprudence Defining Employee Under The Adea Threatens The Basic Structure Of The Modern Large Law Firm, Jessica Fink

UC Law Business Journal

Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, as well as other federal anti-discrimination laws, only "employees" as defined by the statute are permitted to sue. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have provided guidance regarding when partners in large law firms might be deemed "employees" protected by these laws. What has emerged from the courts' decisions in these cases is a test that places significant emphasis on the amount of power and control that a partner has within a firm: Partners deemed to lack a sufficient amount of power and control within their firms may be …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go - Covenants Not To Compete In A Down Economy: A Proposal For Better Advocacy And Better Judicial Opinions, Kate O'Neill

UC Law Business Journal

This article is an effort to think about covenants not to compete from a theoretical and practical standpoint. Employee covenants not to compete generate a lot of legal disputes perhaps, in part, because they often bite when an employment relationship is already on the rocks and then they extend their restraints out past the time of any productive exchange between the parties. Employee covenants not to compete also generate scores of academic articles because there are always new cases to write about and because covenants dwell on a fault line that runs between freedom of contract and substantive control over …