Monthly Archives: January 2014

Firm Boundaries Matter

Posted by R. Christopher Small, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Amit Seru, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago.

Do firm boundaries affect the allocation of resources? This question had spawned significant research in economics since it was raised in Coase (1937). A large body of work has focused on comparing the resource allocation in conglomerates relative to stand-alone firms to shed light on this issue. Theoretically, there are competing views on this aspect. On the one hand, Alchian (1969), Wiliamson (1985), and Stein (1997), among others, have put forth the view that conglomerates, by virtue of exerting centralized control over the capital allocation process, may do a better job in directing investments than the external capital markets. On the other hand, the “dark side” view of internal capital markets argues that problems of corporate socialism are more prevalent in conglomerates making them less efficient in resource allocation (Rajan, Servaes, and Zingales, 2000; Scharfstein and Stein, 2000).

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Considerations for Directors in the 2014 Proxy Season and Beyond

Posted by Amy L. Goodman, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and John F. Olson, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Georgetown Law Center, on
Monday, January 27, 2014
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Amy Goodman is a partner and co-chair of the Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance practice group at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and John Olson is a founding partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Washington, D.C. office and a visiting professor at the Georgetown Law Center. The following post is based on a Gibson Dunn alert by Ms. Goodman, Mr. Olson, Gillian McPhee, and Michael J. Scanlon.

As we begin 2014, calendar-year companies are immersed in preparing for what promises to be another busy proxy season. We continue to see shareholder proposals on many of the same subjects addressed during last proxy season, as discussed in our post recapping shareholder proposal developments in 2013. To help public companies and their boards of directors prepare for the coming year’s annual meeting and plan ahead for other corporate governance developments in 2014, we discuss below several key topics to consider.

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The Corporate Governance Movement, Banks and the Financial Crisis

Posted by Brian R. Cheffins, University of Cambridge, on
Monday, January 27, 2014
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Brian Cheffins is a Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Cambridge.

The primary function of corporate governance in the United States has been to address the managerial agency cost problem that afflicts publicly traded companies with dispersed share ownership. Berle and Means threw the spotlight on this type of agency cost problem—using different nomenclature—in their famous 1932 book The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Nevertheless, it was only in the 1970s that the now ubiquitous corporate governance movement began. Why did the corporate governance movement gain momentum in the U.S. when it did? And given its belated arrival, why did it flourish during ensuing decades?

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The SEC’s Refocus on Accounting Irregularities

Posted by Noam Noked, co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Monday, January 27, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Paul A. Ferrillo, counsel at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP specializing in complex securities and business litigation, and is based on an article by Mr. Ferrillo, Christopher Garcia, and Matthew Jacques of AlixPartners that first appeared in D&O Diary.

On July 2, 2013, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) announced two new initiatives aimed at preventing and detecting improper or fraudulent financial reporting. [1] We previously noted that one of these initiatives, a computer-based tool called the Accounting Quality Model (AQM, or “Robocop”), [2] is designed to enable real-time analytical review of financial reports filed with the SEC in order to help identify questionable accounting practices.

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ISS Releases FAQs: Defensive Bylaw May Lead to Negative Vote Recommendations

Posted by Noam Noked, co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Sunday, January 26, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Rebecca Grapsas, senior associate in the Corporate Department of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, and is based on a Weil alert.

Public companies that have recently adopted or are considering adopting bylaws that disqualify director nominees who receive compensation from anyone other than the company should be aware of new FAQs released yesterday by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and the potential impact the FAQs may have on forthcoming director elections. Such bylaws typically operate in conjunction with advance notice bylaws that require proponents to disclose compensation arrangements with their nominees. Compensation payable by a third party for director candidacy and/or board service—for example, by an insurgent in a contested director election—may call into question a director’s undivided loyalty to the company and all of its shareholders.

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The Two Faces of Materiality

Posted by June Rhee, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Saturday, January 25, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Richard A. Booth, Martin G. McGuinn Professor of Business Law of Villanova University School of Law.

In order to prove securities fraud under federal law, one must show that the defendant either misrepresented a material fact or omitted to state a material fact when under a duty to speak. The fact must somehow matter to investors. But the courts have struggled mightily to determine when a fact is material.

On the one hand, the Supreme Court has held that a fact is material if it would be important to a reasonable investor in deciding how to act—how to vote or whether to trade. The information need not be so important that it would change the outcome. But it cannot be so trivial that it would not affect the total mix of available information. Moreover, it must matter in the sense that an investor can do something with the information. For example, although the fact that a merger lacks a business purpose or that the board of directors thinks the price is low might be important in some sense, these facts may not be material if the investor has no vote on the matter or the controlling stockholder has enough votes to assure approval.

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Basel Committee’s Revisions to the Basel III Leverage Ratio

Posted by Margaret E. Tahyar, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, on
Friday, January 24, 2014
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Margaret E. Tahyar is a partner in the Financial Institutions Group at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. The following post is based on the introduction to a Davis Polk client memorandum by Luigi L. De Ghenghi and Andrew S. Fei; the full publication, including visuals, tables, timelines and formulas, is available here.

In January 2014, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision finalized its revisions to the Basel III leverage ratio. Compared to its June 2013 proposed revisions, the Basel Committee has made several important changes to the denominator of the Basel III leverage ratio, including with respect to the treatment of derivatives, securities financing transactions and certain off-balance sheet items.

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How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Capitalization Strategies?

Posted by R. Christopher Small, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Friday, January 24, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Deniz Anginer of the Department of Finance at Virginal Tech, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Director of Research at the World Bank; Harry Huizinga, Professor of Economics at Tilburg University; and Kebin Ma of the World Bank.

In our paper, How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Capitalization Strategies?, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we examine how corporate governance and executive compensation affect bank capitalization strategies for an international sample of banks over the 2003-2011 period.

We find that ‘good’ corporate governance—or corporate governance that causes the bank to act in the interests of bank shareholders—engenders lower levels of bank capital. Specifically, we find that bank boards of intermediate size (big enough to escape capture by management, but small enough to avoid free rider problems within the board), separation of the CEO and chairman of the board roles, and an absence of anti-takeover provisions lead to lower capitalization rates. ‘Good’ corporate governance thus may be bad for bank stability and potentially entail high social costs. This disadvantage of ‘good’ corporate governance has be balanced with presumed benefits in terms of restricting management’s ability to perform less badly in other areas—for instance, by shirking or acquiring perks—at the expense of bank shareholders.

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Boardroom Confidentiality Under Focus

Posted by David A. Katz, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, on
Thursday, January 23, 2014
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David A. Katz is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz specializing in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and complex securities transactions. This post is based on an article by Mr. Katz and Laura A. McIntosh that first appeared in the New York Law Journal; the full article, including footnotes, is available here.

In our Age of Communication, confidential information is more easily exposed than ever before. Real-time communication tools and social media give everyone with Internet access the ability to publicize information widely, and confidential information is always at risk of inadvertent or intentional exposure. The current cultural emphasis on transparency and disclosure—punctuated by headline news of high-profile leakers and whistleblowers, and exacerbated in the corporate context by aggressive activist shareholders and their director nominees—has contributed to an atmosphere in which sensitive corporate information is increasingly difficult to protect. There is limited statutory or case law to guide boards and directors in this area, and there exists a range of opinions among market participants and media commentators as to whether leaking information (other than illegal insider tipping) is problematic at all.

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Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund—Former Members of Congress Supporting Neither Party

Posted by Robert Giuffra, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, on
Thursday, January 23, 2014
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Robert Giuffra is a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell’s Litigation Group. The following post is based on an amicus brief filed by Sullivan & Cromwell in the case of Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. The Supreme Court’s expected reconsideration of Basic is also discussed in a Harvard Law School Discussion Paper by Professors Lucian Bebchuk and Allen Ferrell, Rethinking Basic, discussed on the Forum here.

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP filed an amicus brief on January 6, 2014 with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., No. 13-317. This brief is submitted on behalf of former members of Congress, SEC officials and congressional counsel involved in the drafting of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) of 1995. In Amgen, Justice Ginsburg, for the majority, characterized the PSLRA’s silence on the Basic fraud-on-the-market presumption as a “reject[ion]” of “calls to undo” Basic. 133 S. Ct. at 1200 (Amgen, p. 20, available here). In opposing cert in Halliburton (see brief in opposition of certiorari, pages 32-33, available here), plaintiffs referenced Congress’s silence in the PSLRA as acquiescence in Basic‘s presumption. This congressional acquiescence argument could be critical to the decision in Halliburton, which could be one of the most important securities cases in years.

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