Yearly Archives: 2015

Increasing Transparency of Alternative Trading Systems

Posted by Kara M. Stein, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Algorithmic trading, Broker-dealers, Capital markets, Conflicts of interest, Dark pools, Disclosure, High-frequency trading, Information environment, Institutional Investors, Proprietary trading, Regulation NMS, Transparency
More from: Kara Stein, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Kara M. Stein is a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This post is based on Commissioner Stein’s recent remarks at a recent open meeting of the SEC; the complete publication, including footnotes, is available here. The views expressed in the post are those of Commissioner Stein and do not necessarily reflect those of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the other Commissioners, or the Staff.

Today [November 18, 2015], the Commission meets to consider a proposal to increase the transparency of alternative trading systems (ATS). Many ATSs are commonly referred to as “dark pools”. To most people, dark pools are a little bit of a mystery, and that’s because they often function in great secrecy. Today’s proposal seeks to shine a light into that darkness.

Modern ATSs are a product of the rapid technological advances that have revolutionized the way stocks are bought and sold. An ATS is an electronic order matching system operated by a broker-dealer. Much like an exchange, it brings together buyers and sellers. There are many types of ATSs, and they facilitate the purchase and sale of all types of securities ranging from equities to corporate bonds to Treasuries, and more. Unlike an exchange, which must disclose publicly quotes and prices at which securities transactions occur, an ATS can operate in the dark with only limited information about its operations.

ISS 2016 Voting Policies

Posted by Andrew R. Brownstein & David A. Katz, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, on

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Andrew R. Brownstein is partner and co-chair of the Corporate practice group, and David A. Katz is a partner specializing in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and activism, and crisis management at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. This post is based on a Wachtell Lipton memorandum by Mr. Brownstein, Mr. Katz, David M. Silk, Trevor S. Norwitz, Sabastian V. Niles, and S. Iliana Ongun.

[November 20, 2015], ISS announced its final U.S. voting policies for the 2016 proxy season. ISS had previously released draft proposals on several of the topics in October. Changes to non-U.S. policies were also announced, including with respect to Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong & Singapore, India, Japan, the Middle East & Africa and the U.K. & Ireland. ISS also released an updated equity plan scorecard “FAQ,” which contains a new model index for large companies that are newly public or emerging from bankruptcy, as well as other minor adjustments to scorecard factors.

Corporate Law and The Limits of Private Ordering

Posted by James D. Cox, Duke Law School, on

Monday, November 23, 2015

Agency model, Boards of Directors, Charter & bylaws, Contracts, Corporate forms, Delaware articles, Delaware law, DGCL, Fiduciary duties, Forum selection, Information asymmetries, Private ordering, Shareholder rights, Shareholder suits
More from: James Cox

James D. Cox is the Brainerd Currie Professor of Law of Duke Law School. The following post is based on an article forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review. This post is part of the Delaware law series; links to other posts in the series are available here. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes Private Ordering and the Proxy Access Debate by Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst (discussed on the Forum here).

Solomon-like, the Delaware legislature in 2015 split the baby by amending the Delaware General Corporation Law to authorize forum-selection bylaws and to prohibit charter or bylaw provisions that would shift to the plaintiff defense costs incurred in connection with shareholder suits that were not successfully concluded. The legislature acted after the Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund. v. Chevron Corp ATP Tour, Inc. v. Deutscher Tennis Bund, broadly empowered the board vis-à-vis the shareholders through the board’s power to amend the bylaws. Repeatedly the analysis used by each court referenced the contractual relationship the shareholders had through the articles of incorporation and the bylaws with their corporation. The action of the Delaware legislation hardly puts the important question raised by each opinion to bed: are there limits on the board of directors to act through the bylaws to alter the rights shareholders customarily enjoy? Stated differently, can the board of directors’ authority to amend the bylaws extend to changing both the procedural and substantive relationship shareholders have with their corporation. In examining this question, the article, Corporate Law and The Limits of Private Ordering, develops two broad points: the shareholder’s relationship is more than just a contract and, even if the relationship was contractual, bedrock contract law does not support the results reached in Boilermakers and ATP Tour, Inc. In conclusion, the article also uncovers an issued overlooked in the debate over the relative prerogatives of shareholders and the board of directors, namely that bylaws proposed by the board of directors carry a strong presumption of propriety whereas those proposed by shareholders do not.

Program Hiring Post-Doctoral Fellows and Senior Associates

Posted by The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance & Financial Regulation, on

Monday, November 23, 2015

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The Program on Corporate Governance is seeking applications from highly qualified candidates who are interested in working with the Program as post-doctoral fellows or senior associates in the fields of corporate governance and/or law and finance.

Post-Doctoral Fellows: Applicants for a position of a post-doctoral fellow should be interested in spending between one and three years in preparation for a career in academia or in policy research. Applicants should have a J.D. or an LL.M. degree from a U.S. law school, or a doctoral degree in finance, accounting or business economics. Applicants may also be candidates who would be completing work on a doctoral dissertation in law or another discipline during their period as fellows.

Senior Associates: Applicants for the position of senior associate should be interested in working with the Program on some of its activities in the areas of corporate governance and law and finance. Applicants should have a J.D. or an LL.M. degree from a U.S. law school. Law firm experience in a relevant area of legal practice would be a plus.

During the period of their appointment, post-doctoral fellows and senior associates will be expected to work on research and corporate governance activities of the Program, with the allocation to projects depending on their interests and program requirements.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Applicants should send the following to the coordinator of the Program, at [email protected]: (1) a curriculum vitae; and (2) a 2-3 page statement describing the applicant’s interests, experience, reasons for seeking the position, career plans, and the kind of Program projects and activities in which they would be interested in being involved.

Management Philosophies and Styles in Family and Non-Family Firms

Posted by William Mullins, University of Maryland, & Antoinette Schoar, Professor of Finance at MIT, on

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Closely-held corporations, Emerging markets, Incentives, International governance, Investor horizons, Management, Manager characteristics, Managerial style, Ownership structure, Private firms, Public firms, Social networks, Stakeholders
More from: Antoinette Schoar, William Mullins

William Mullins is Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Maryland and Antoinette Schoar is Professor of Finance at MIT. This post is based on an article authored by Professor Mullins and Professor Schoar.

A growing body of evidence supports the view that there are substantial differences in the management styles and skill sets of individual CEOs, and these differences seem to translate into effects on firm performance and how firms operate. However, we know little about what drives these differences in CEO behavior. In particular, we do not know if the management philosophies and styles of CEOs vary with the governance structure or ownership of the firm (for example, whether it is a family firm or widely held firm), or even across countries. One view is that the extent to which they take a stakeholder approach to management—in opposition to a shareholder focused approach—is an important determinant of CEO behavior. Family members as CEO might be more likely to adopt a stakeholder view, since they have a longer horizon and care about the reputation of the family beyond profit maximization. An alternative view holds that greater emphasis on stakeholder management is a feature of entire countries, evolving in response to aspects of the economy as a whole, rather than to firm-specific characteristics.

In our paper, How Do CEOs See Their Roles? Management Philosophies and Styles in Family and Non-Family Firms, forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, we explore how the interplay of firm level and country level factors shape CEO management styles and beliefs regarding their roles.

Derivatives and Uncleared Margins

Posted by Dan Ryan, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, on

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Dan Ryan is Leader of the Financial Services Advisory Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. This post is based on a PwC publication by Mr. Ryan, Mike Alix, Adam Gilbert, Armen Meyer, and Christopher Scarpati.

Over the past two weeks, the US banking regulators released their much anticipated final margin requirements for the uncleared portion of the derivatives market. [1] This portion amounts to over $250 trillion of the global $630 trillion outstanding and has up to now been operating in “business as usual” mode, [2] while other derivatives have been pushed into clearing. The final rule’s release completes a long process since it was proposed in 2011 and re-proposed in 2014. [3]

The good news for the industry is that the final rule is generally aligned with international standards [4] and similar requirements proposed in major foreign jurisdictions. Most notably, the final rule increases the threshold of swap activity that would bring a financial end user (e.g., hedge fund) within the rule’s scope from $3 billion to $8 billion. This change, which aligns the rule with European and Japanese proposals, eases the compliance burden of smaller, less-risky market participants.

19 Law Professors Submit Amicus Brief in Union Political Spending Case

Posted by John C. Coates, Harvard Law School, on

Friday, November 20, 2015

Citizens United v. FEC, Disclosure, Political spending, Rulemaking Petition on Corporate Political Spending, Shareholder rights, Shining Light on Corporate Political Spending, Supreme Court, Transparency
More from: John Coates

John C. Coates is the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School. This post relates to a brief submitted by 19 law professors, led by Professor Coates, in the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The amicus brief is available here.

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that under the First Amendment, the government could not restrict a corporation’s independent political spending, even in the interest of aligning corporate expression with shareholders’ views. In contrast, an earlier Court case, Abood v. Detroit of Board of Education, conditioned the ability of unions to use fees from non-members for political spending on a mechanism for non-members to opt out of fees not directly used in collective bargaining. In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association—currently awaiting oral argument in the Court’s October Term 2015—again deals with speech by labor unions, which the Supreme Court has compared to speech by corporations.

Presently, California requires that public schoolteachers either join the California Teachers Union or pay “agency fees” to compensate the union for its efforts on their behalf. Plaintiffs, a group of teachers, argue that these fees constitute forced subsidization of the union’s speech. Pinning their claim to the First Amendment, plaintiffs are seeking to invalidate agency fees altogether, or else require non-union members to affirmatively consent to subsidizing the union’s speech. In effect, plaintiffs are seeking to overturn Abood, converting an opt-out to an opt-in. The CTU, on the other hand, argues that the opt-out already required by Abood means that non-union teachers are not forced to pay for union speech at all.

The Continuing Work of Enhancing Small Business Capital Formation

Posted by Luis A. Aguilar, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on

Friday, November 20, 2015

Broker-dealers, Capital formation, Capital markets, Crowdfunding, Investor protection, JOBS Act, Regulation A, Regulation D, Rule 147, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation, Small firms
More from: Luis Aguilar, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Luis A. Aguilar is a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This post is based on Commissioner Aguilar’s recent public statement at the SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation; the full text, including footnotes, is available here. The views expressed in the post are those of Commissioner Aguilar and do not necessarily reflect those of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the other Commissioners, or the Staff.

As everyone participating in today’s [November 19, 2015] Forum knows well, our nation’s small businesses spur innovation, produce technological change, and drive job creation across the greater economy. In fact, from mid-2009—or what some pinpoint as the end of the “Great Recession”—to mid-2013, small businesses accounted for approximately 60% of net new jobs. More recently, statistics compiled through the first three quarters of 2014 show that our nation’s 28 million small business owners have been responsible for an even greater share of overall job creation, accounting for between 73% and 84% of net new jobs during that period. There can be no doubt that facilitating an environment that nurtures and breeds successful startups and small companies is critical to the health of our greater economy.

Glass Lewis’ Updated Voting Policy Guidelines

Posted by Andrew R. Brownstein & David A. Katz, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, on

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Glass Lewis has released updated U.S. proxy voting guidelines for the 2016 proxy season. Key areas of focus include: (i) nominating committee performance; (ii) changing the Glass Lewis approach to exclusive forum provisions if adopted in the context of an initial public offering; (iii) director “overboarding;” (iv) evaluation of conflicting management and shareholder proposals when both are put to a vote of shareholders; and (v) withhold recommendations in the context of failures of environmental and social risk oversight.

Proxy Access: Preparing for the 2016 Proxy Season

Posted by Thomas Christopher, Ryan Maierson, Tiffany Campion, and Charles Wang, Latham & Watkins LLP, on

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Thomas W. Christopher is a partner in the New York office and Ryan J. Maierson is a partner in the Houston office of Latham & Watkins LLP. This post is based on a Latham publication by Mr. Christopher, Mr. Maierson, Tiffany Fobes Campion, and Charles C. Wang. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes Lucian Bebchuk’s The Case for Shareholder Access to the Ballot and The Myth of the Shareholder Franchise (discussed on the Forum here), and Private Ordering and the Proxy Access Debate by Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst (discussed on the Forum here).

As the 2016 proxy season approaches, every public company should consider its position on proxy access and should have a plan for responding to a shareholder proxy access proposal. Based on lessons learned from the 2015 season, this post summarizes:

Actions a public company can take to prepare for receipt of a proxy access proposal.
Whether a company should wait and react to a shareholder proxy access proposal or preemptively adopt its own proxy access regime.
Alternatives available to a company following receipt of a proxy access proposal.

Proxy access is a mechanism that gives shareholders the right to nominate directors and have those nominees included in the company’s annual meeting proxy statement. Proxy access gained significant momentum in 2015, with approximately 100 proposals submitted to shareholders and approximately 58% of those proposals being approved by shareholders. [1] Very likely a number of public companies will be subject to proxy access proposals during the 2016 proxy season.

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