Monthly Archives: March 2014

FDIC Lawsuits against Directors and Officers of Failed Financial Institutions

Posted by John Gould, Cornerstone Research, on
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
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John Gould is senior vice president at Cornerstone Research. The following post discusses a Cornerstone Research report by Abe Chernin, Katie Galley, Yesim C. Richardson, and Joseph T. Schertler, titled “Characteristics of FDIC Lawsuits against Directors and Officers of Failed Financial Institutions—February 2014,” available here.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) litigation activity associated with failed financial institutions increased significantly in 2013, according to Characteristics of FDIC Lawsuits against Directors and Officers of Failed Financial Institutions—February 2014, a new report by Cornerstone Research. The FDIC filed 40 director and officer (D&O) lawsuits in 2013, compared with 26 in 2012, a 54 percent increase.

The surge in FDIC D&O lawsuits stems from the high number of financial institution failures in 2009 and 2010. Of the 140 financial institutions that failed in 2009, the directors and officers of 64 (or 46 percent) either have been the subject of an FDIC lawsuit or settled claims with the FDIC prior to the filing of a lawsuit. Of the 157 institutions that failed in 2010, 53 (or 34 percent) have either been the subject of a lawsuit or have settled with the FDIC.

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Toward a Constitutional Review of the Poison Pill

Posted by Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Law School, and Robert J. Jackson, Jr., Columbia Law School, on
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
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Lucian Bebchuk is Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance at Harvard Law School. Robert J. Jackson, Jr. is Associate Professor of Law, Milton Handler Fellow, and Co-Director of the Millstein Center at Columbia Law School. This post is based on their recent working paper, Toward a Constitutional Review of the Poison Pill, available here.

In a new paper, Toward a Constitutional Review of the Poison Pill, we argue that the state-law rules governing poison pills are vulnerable to challenges based on preemption by the Williams Act. Such challenges, we show, could well have a major impact on the corporate-law landscape.

The Williams Act established a federal regime regulating unsolicited tender offers, but states subsequently developed a body of state antitakeover laws that impose additional impediments to such offers. In a series of well-known cases during the 1970s and 1980s, the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, held some of these state antitakeover laws preempted by the Williams Act. To date, however, federal courts and commentators have paid little attention to the possibility that the state-law rules authorizing the use of poison pills—the most powerful impediment to outside buyers of shares—are also preempted.

Our study examines this subject and concludes that there is a substantial basis for questioning the continued validity of current state-law rules authorizing the use of poison pills. We show that these rules impose tighter restrictions on unsolicited offers than state antitakeover regulations that federal courts invalidated on the grounds of preemption. Preemption challenges to these poison-pill rules could well result in their invalidation by the federal courts.

Finally, we discuss how state lawmakers could revise poison-pill rules to make them more likely to survive a federal preemption challenge. This could be done, we show, by imposing substantial limits on the length of time during which a poison pill can be used to block tender offers. Whether preemption challenges lead to invalidation of existing state-law poison-pill rules or to their substantial modification, such challenges could well reshape the market for corporate control.

Here is a more detailed overview of our analysis:

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Corporate “Free Exercise” and Fiduciary Duties of Directors

Posted by Noam Noked, co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Mark A. Underberg, retired partner of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

This Spring, the Supreme Court will decide whether a for-profit corporation can refuse to provide insurance coverage for birth control and other reproductive health services mandated by the Affordable Healthcare Act (or “Obamacare”) when doing so would conflict with “the corporation’s” religious beliefs. Although the main legal issue in Sibelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., et al. v. Sibelius concerns the extent to which the guarantee of free exercise of religion under the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act may be asserted by for-profit corporations, the Court’s decision may also have important—and unsettling—implications for state corporate laws that define the fiduciary duties of boards of directors.

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Enhanced Prudential Standards “First Take”

Posted by Noam Noked, co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Monday, March 3, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Dan Ryan, Leader of the Financial Services Advisory Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and is based on a PwC publication.

Our observations on the Federal Reserve’s final rule:

1. Delayed effective date and higher threshold: Foreign Banking Organizations (FBOs) eked out several small victories in the final rule—in particular, the July 2015 compliance date has been pushed to July 2016 and smaller FBOs (i.e., those with under $50 billion in US non-branch assets) are no longer required to form an Intermediate Holding Company (IHC). The changes reflect the Federal Reserve’s attempt to respond to FBOs’ concerns, especially that smaller FBOs did not pose as much risk to US financial stability.

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SEC Enforcement Year in Review

Posted by Noam Noked, co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Monday, March 3, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Adam S. Hakki, partner and global head of the Litigation Group at Shearman & Sterling LLP, and is based on a Shearman & Sterling client publication. The complete publication, including footnotes, is available here.

Marked by leadership changes, high-profile trials, and shifting priorities, 2013 was a turning point for the Enforcement Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC” or the “Commission”). While the results of these management and programmatic changes will continue to play out over the next year and beyond, one notable early observation is that we expect an increasingly aggressive enforcement program.

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UK Shareholder Activism: A Toolbox for 2014

Posted by Kobi Kastiel, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Sunday, March 2, 2014
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The following post comes to us from Jeffery Roberts, senior partner in the London office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and is based on a Gibson Dunn alert by Mr. Roberts.

Following an increase in shareholder and investor activism beyond pure executive remuneration issues in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2013, with some 25 companies targeted for public campaigns, this post provides a summary of certain principles of English law and UK and European regulation applicable to UK listed public companies and their shareholders that are relevant to the expected further increase in activism in 2014. This post covers (i) stake-building; (ii) shareholders’ rights to require companies to hold general meetings; (iii) shareholders’ rights to propose resolutions at annual general meetings; and (iv) recent developments in these and related areas through raising and answering a number of relevant questions.

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SEC Institutes Administrative Proceedings Against KPMG For Auditor Independence Violations

Posted by Lee A. Meyerson, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, on
Saturday, March 1, 2014
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Lee A. Meyerson is a Partner who heads the M&A Group and Financial Institutions Practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. This post is based on a Simpson Thacher memorandum by Avrohom J. Kess, Karen Hsu Kelley, and Yafit Cohn.

On January 24, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued an order instituting settled administrative and cease-and-desist proceedings against KPMG LLP (“KPMG”) for violating auditor independence rules in its relationships with affiliates of three of its SEC-registered audit clients. [1] At the crux of the SEC’s order are its findings that:

  • KPMG provided prohibited non-audit services to affiliates of its audit clients;
  • KPMG hired a former employee of an affiliate of one of KPMG’s audit clients and subsequently loaned him back to the affiliate to do the same work he had done as an employee of the affiliate;
  • Certain KPMG employees owned stock in KPMG’s audit clients or affiliates of its audit clients; and
  • KPMG repeatedly represented in its audit reports that it was “independent.”

KPMG settled the charges for approximately $8.2 million.

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