Yearly Archives: 2015

Observations on Short-Termism and Long-Termism

Posted by Charles Nathan, RLM Finsbury, on
Monday, October 12, 2015
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Charles Nathan is partner and head of the Corporate Governance Practice at RLM Finsbury. This post responds to a post by Robert C. Pozen, titled Institutional Investors and Corporate Short-Termism. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism by Lucian Bebchuk, Alon Brav, and Wei Jiang (discussed on the Forum here), and The Myth that Insulating Boards Serves Long-Term Value by Lucian Bebchuk (discussed on the Forum here).

The debate about whether U.S. public companies are afflicted by short-termism rather than more beneficial longer-term behavior and, if so, its effect on our economy is ubiquitous. It occupies increasing attention in corporate board rooms, executive suites and investment management businesses from the smallest to the largest. The debate is a commonplace topic in the legal and academic worlds as well as the financial press, and it is rapidly spreading to more general news outlets and the political scene—to the point where at least one Presidential candidate has made the debate a focal point of her tax reform platform.

A complicating factor in the debate is that there is no consensus about what short-term and long-term refer to. Is or should the debate be about:

  • investor behavior (e.g., short-term traders versus long-term holders),
  • investor objectives (e.g., increases in portfolio value in the short-term at the cost of foregoing better long-term fund performance),
  • corporate behavior (e.g., focusing on short-term profitability to meet or better quarterly performance goals to the detriment of greater long-term profitability), or
  • corporate objectives and strategy (e.g., engaging in financial engineering to generate short-term value creation, thereby precluding long-term investment in building the business through research and development, improved plants and production methods or product and market expansion)?

In this post we offer some observations on the debate, as well as its rhetoric and assumptions, in an effort to bring some clarity to the topic, identify the important issues and resolve at least some of them.
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The Failure of Liability in Modern Markets

Posted by Yesha Yadav, Vanderbilt Law School, on
Monday, October 12, 2015
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Yesha Yadav is an Associate Professor of Law of Vanderbilt Law School. This post is based on an article authored by Professor Yadav.

In April 2015, the Justice Department indicted Navinder Sarao—a 36 year-old trader operating out of his parents’ basement—for actions resulting in the Flash Crash in May 2010. [1] According to the complaint, Sarao’s use of fake or “spoof” orders was damaging enough to precipitate a near 1000-point plunge in in the Dow Jones Index. It is telling that, today, a single trader can stand accused of contributing to this extraordinary drop in the value of the stock market. The complaint draws into relief the central challenge facing securities trading. With markets approaching ever-fuller levels of automation and driven by complex algorithms, even small-time traders like Sarao can create costs far in excess of either the seriousness of their conduct—or their capacity to pay for what they do. As I argue in The Failure of Liability in Modern Markets, to be published in the Virginia Law Review, the liability framework anchoring modern, algorithmic markets struggles to both control harmful risks and to punish them satisfactorily. Where instances of mistake, carelessness and fraud can neither be reliably controlled nor adequately punished, the law’s capacity to create a fair, richly informed marketplace must come under serious doubt.

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Materiality as Pleading Obstacle

Posted by Brad S. Karp, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, on
Sunday, October 11, 2015
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Brad S. Karp is chairman and partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. This post is based on a Paul Weiss client memorandum.

Claims brought under the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Act”) are typically challenging for defendants to dismiss. Some defendants may have affirmative defenses, but most of the Act’s provisions impose strict liability for alleged misstatements—meaning that a plaintiff need not plead scienter—and claims brought under the Act are subject to the relatively low pleading standard imposed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8. Further, although plaintiffs suing under the Act must allege facts sufficient to show that the purported misstatements were material, courts are generally reluctant to dismiss for failure to plead this element because materiality is an inherently fact-bound inquiry.

Notwithstanding these principles, on September 29, 2015, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Oetken, J.) dismissed a putative class action brought under the Act on the ground that the complaint’s materiality allegations failed as a matter of law. The opinion provides valuable insights on how to defeat other Act claims on similar grounds. [1]

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The SEC’s Focus on Cybersecurity

Posted by Jessica Forbes, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, on
Saturday, October 10, 2015
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Jessica Forbes is a corporate partner resident the New York office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. This post is based on a Fried Frank publication authored by Ms. Forbes, Joanna D. Rosenberg, and Stacey Song.

On September 22, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued a cease-and-desist order (the “Order”) and settled charges against St. Louis-based investment adviser R.T. Jones Capital Equities Management (“R.T. Jones”) for failing to establish required policies and procedures to safeguard customer information in violation of Rule 30(a) of Regulation S-P (“Rule 30(a)”) under the Securities Act of 1933. [1]

Rule 30(a) requires every broker, dealer, investment company and registered investment adviser to adopt written policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure the security and confidentiality of customer information and to protect customer information from anticipated threats or unauthorized access. According to the Order, from at least September 2009 through July 2013, R.T. Jones stored personal information of its clients and other persons on its third party-hosted web server without adopting any such written policies and procedures. In July 2013, a hacker gained access to the data on R.T. Jones’ web server, rendering the personal information of more than 100,000 individuals vulnerable to theft. In response to the cyber attack, R.T. Jones notified each individual whose information was compromised.

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Those Short-Sighted Attacks on Quarterly Earnings

Posted by Robert C. Pozen and Mark J. Roe, on
Thursday, October 8, 2015
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Robert C. Pozen  is a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Mark Roe is a professor at Harvard Law School. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes Corporate Short-termism—In the Boardroom and in the Courtroom by Mark Roe (discussed on the Forum here); and The Myth that Insulating Boards Serves Long-Term Value by Lucian Bebchuk (discussed on the Forum here).

The clamor against so-called corporate short-term thinking has been steadily rising, with a recent focus on eliminating the quarterly earnings report that public firms issue. Quarterly reports are said to push management to forgo attractive long-term projects to meet the expectations of investors and traders who want smooth, rising earnings from quarter to quarter.

The U.K. recently eliminated mandatory quarterly reports with the goal of lengthening the time horizon for corporate business decision-making. And now Martin Lipton, a prominent U.S. corporate lawyer, has proposed that U.S. companies’ boards be allowed to choose semiannual instead of quarterly reporting. The proposal resonates in Washington circles: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has criticized “quarterly capitalism” as has the recently departed Republican SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher.

But while quarterly reporting has drawbacks, the costs of going to semiannual reporting clearly outweigh any claimed benefits.

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Regulatory Approvals for Bank M&A

Posted by Edward D. Herlihy, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, on
Thursday, October 8, 2015
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Edward D. Herlihy is a partner and co-chairman of the Executive Committee at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The following post is based on a Wachtell Lipton memorandum by Mr. Herlihy and Richard K. Kim.

The Federal Reserve’s approval last week of M&T’s pending acquisition of Hudson City has prompted a great deal of speculation as to the current state of the regulatory approval process for bank mergers and acquisitions. Announced over three years ago, on August 27, 2012, the M&T/Hudson City transaction has taken longer to receive Federal Reserve approval than any other bank merger. Many in the industry have interpreted the delay in receiving approval for the merger as representing a policy change by the Federal Reserve. As discussed below, we view the transaction as largely an idiosyncratic event that is a result as much of timing as any policy shifts by the Federal Reserve. With this approval, taken together with the others that the Federal Reserve has issued over the past several months, there is now more clarity and certainty to the regulatory approval process for bank M&A. With the exception of the largest systemically important banks, there is no regulatory policy impeding bank mergers.

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SCOTUS Declines Petition on Insider Trading Ruling

Posted by Brad S. Karp, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, on
Thursday, October 8, 2015
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Brad S. Karp is chairman and partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. This post is based on a Paul Weiss client memorandum.

Today [October 5, 2015], the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the petition for a writ of certiorari (the “Petition”) filed by the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2d Cir. 2014), a landmark decision that dismissed indictments against two insider trading defendants. By declining to hear the Petition, the Supreme Court ensured that the Second Circuit’s decision in Newman will remain binding in the Second Circuit and influential across the country.

As we explain below, two of Newman’s holdings are particularly important: first, that the government must prove that a remote tippee knew or should have known of the personal benefit received by a tipper in exchange for disclosing nonpublic information; and second, that the benefits alleged by the government in United States v. Newman were not sufficient to support a conviction, as they were not sufficiently “consequential.”

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Delaware’s Respect for Informed Stockholder Approval of Mergers

Posted by William Savitt, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, on
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
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William Savitt is a partner in the Litigation Department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. This post is based on a Wachtell Lipton firm memorandum by Mr. Savitt, Ryan A. McLeod, and Nicholas Walter. This post is part of the Delaware law series, which is cosponsored by the Forum and Corporation Service Company; links to other posts in the series are available here.

In an important ruling last week, the Delaware Supreme Court reaffirmed that control of Delaware companies lies in the boardroom and held that the deferential business judgment rule is the “appropriate standard of review for a post-closing damages action” when a third-party merger “has been approved by a fully informed, uncoerced majority of the disinterested stockholders.” Corwin v. KKR Fin. Holdings LLC, No. 629, 2014 (Del. Oct. 2, 2015) (en banc).

The ruling affirms the Court of Chancery’s dismissal of a case challenging KKR’s $2.6 billion acquisition of KKR Financial Holdings LLC (“KFN”), about which we previously wrote. Attacking the trial court’s ruling, stockholder plaintiffs argued that KKR was KFN’s controlling shareholder (notwithstanding its small equity stake) because a KKR affiliate managed KFN’s day-to-day operations pursuant to a management agreement. The Supreme Court disagreed and confirmed that a minority stockholder will not be considered a controller without “a combination of potent voting power and management control such that the stockholder could be deemed to have effective control of the board without actually owning a majority of stock.” Because KKR was not a controlling stockholder, the transaction was not subject to entire fairness review.

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The Spotlight on Boards

Posted by Martin Lipton, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, on
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
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Martin Lipton is a founding partner of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and matters affecting corporate policy and strategy. This post is based on a Wachtell Lipton memorandum by Mr. Lipton and Sabastian V. Niles. Mr. Niles is counsel at Wachtell Lipton specializing in rapid response shareholder activism and preparedness, takeover defense, corporate governance, and M&A.

The ever evolving challenges facing corporate boards, and especially this year the statements by BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard of what they expect from boards, prompts an updated snapshot of what is expected from the board of directors of a major public company—not just the legal rules, but also the aspirational “best practices” that have come to have almost as much influence on board and company behavior.

Boards are expected to:

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An End to Disclosure-Only Settlements?

Posted by Monica K. Loseman, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, on
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
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Monica K. Loseman is a partner in the Litigation Department at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. This post is based on a Gibson Dunn publication authored by Ms. Loseman, Nicholas A. Klein, Brian M. Lutz, and Meryl L. Young. This post is part of the Delaware law series, which is cosponsored by the Forum and Corporation Service Company; links to other posts in the series are available here.

In an opinion last week [September 17, 2015], the Delaware Court of Chancery, following other recent decisions from that Court, strongly signaled that stockholder lawsuits in Delaware attacking mergers may no longer be resolved by a corporate defendant providing additional disclosures to stockholders in exchange for a broad release of claims against all defendants. Signaling the end to what has become common practice in stockholder litigation routinely challenging mergers, Vice Chancellor Glasscock noted in his decision approving a settlement in In re Riverbed Technologies that, “in light of this Memorandum Opinion,” expectations that the court will approve such broad releases in exchange for additional disclosures “will be diminished or eliminated going forward.”

The settlement arose out of stockholder litigation concerning a going-private transaction. In the settlement, Riverbed agreed to make supplemental disclosures in an SEC filing prior to the stockholder vote and pay plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees, in exchange for defendants receiving a full release from liability for all claims arising out of the merger.

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