In light of the intense current debate regarding the SEC’s proposed proxy access reforms, the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Covernance this week hosted a roundtable on the proposed reforms. The Roundtable brought together prominent participants in the debate – representing a range of perspectives and experiences – for a day of discussion on the subject.
The two morning sessions, chaired by Professor Robert Clark, focused on the question of whether the SEC should provide an access regime, or whether it should leave the adoption of access arrangements, if any, to private ordering on a company-by-company basis. The third session, chaired by Professor Howell Jackson, focused on on how a proxy access regime should be designed, assuming the SEC were to adopt such an access regime. The final session, chaired by Professor Lucian Bebchuk, went beyond proxy access and focused on whether there are any further changes to the arrangements governing corporate elections that should be considered.
The Program on Corporate Governance will be issuing a transcript of the Roundtable’s proceedings later on; a link to the transcript will be posted on the Forum.
The participants in the Roundtable were as follows:
Joseph Bachelder
Founder and Senior Partner
The Bachelder Firm
Michal Barzuza
Associate Professor of Law
University of Virginia School of Law
Lucian Bebchuk
William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance
Harvard Law School
Robert Clark
Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Austin Wakeman Scott Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
John Coates
John F. Cogan Jr. Professor of Law and Economics
Harvard Law School
Alma Cohen
William K. Jacobs Visiting Professor of Law and Economics
Harvard Law School
Isaac Corré
Senior Managing Director
Eton Park Capital Management L.P.
Stephen M. Davidoff
Associate Professor of Law
University of Connecticut School of Law
Jay Eisenhofer
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Grant & Eisenhofer P.A.
Richard Ferlauto
Director of Corporate Governance and Public Pension Programs
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Allen Ferrell
Harvey Greenfield Professor of Securities Law
Harvard Law School
Jesse Fried
Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
Abe Friedman
Global Head of Corporate Governance & Proxy Voting
Barclays Global Investors
Byron Georgiou
Of Counsel, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Kayla Gillan
Senior Advisor to Chairman Mary L. Schapiro
Deputy Chief of Staff
Securities and Exchange Commission
Jeffrey Gordon
Alfred W. Bressler Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Edward Greene
Partner
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Joseph Grundfest
William A. Franke Professor of Law and Business
Stanford Law School
Scott Hirst
Co-Executive Director
Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance
Howell Jackson
James S. Reid, Jr. Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
Roy Katzovicz
Chief Legal Officer
Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.
Stephen Lamb
Partner
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Michael Laskawy
Senior Advisor to the Vice-Chairman
U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee
Mark Lebovitch
Partner
Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP
Lance Lindblom
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Nathan Cummings Foundation
Simon Lorne
Vice Chairman and Chief Legal Officer
Millennium Management LLC
Robert Mendelsohn
Former Chief Executive Officer
Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group
Ted Mirvis
Partner
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
James Morphy
Partner
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Toby Myerson
Partner
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Annette Nazareth
Partner
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
John Olson
Partner
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Mark Roe
David Berg Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
Eric Roiter
Lecturer in Law
Boston University School of Law
Dean Shahinian
Senior Counsel
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Holger Spamann
Co-Executive Director
Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance
Leo Strine
Vice Chancellor of the Court of Chancery
Delaware Chancery Court
Guhan Subramanian
Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business, Harvard Law School
H. Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law, Harvard Business School
Daniel Summerfield
Co-Head of Responsible Investment
Universities Superannuation Scheme
Greg Taxin
Managing Director, Spotlight Capital Management, LLC
Founder and Former CEO, Glass, Lewis & Co.
Andrea Unterberger
Assistant General Counsel, Corporation Service Company
Director, CSC Media
John C. Wilcox
Head of Corporate Governance, GWM Group
Chairman, Sodali Ltd