Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation

A Second Bite at the Apple for Shareholder Activists to Nominate Directors?

Now that we are midway into the 2018 proxy season, most deadlines for shareholder submissions of director nominations for upcoming annual meetings have come and gone. Nevertheless, shareholder activists who have missed a nomination deadline for whatever reason should be aware that in certain circumstances they may have a second bite at the apple. Where […]

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Recent Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation: 2017 Full-Year Review

In the 25th anniversary edition of NERA’s annual study, Recent Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation, we examine trends in securities class action filings and resolutions in 2017. New findings discussed in this year’s report include an increase in filings, again led by a doubling of merger-objection filings. Highlights of the 2017 report include: A […]

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Board Classification and Diversity in Recent IPOs

Recent tech IPOs such as Snap, Square Inc., Blue Apron, Stitch Fix Inc. and, most recently, Spotify, have all made headlines. In terms of corporate governance, board classification and gender composition are typically a major focal point in these initial offerings. While they don’t have to immediately meet the same criteria as long-time public companies, […]

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How to Be a Good Board Chair

What do good board chairs do in and outside the board room? To explore this questions, INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre launched a research project that included a survey of 200 board chairs from 31 countries, 80 interviews with chairs, and 60 interviews with board members, shareholders and CEOs. An effective chair, the people in our […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Boards of Directors, Comparative Corporate Governance & Regulation, International Corporate Governance & Regulation | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Elon Musk and the Control of Tesla

Recently in In re Tesla Motors, Inc. Stockholder Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery (in an opinion by Vice Chancellor Slights) declined to grant defendants’ motion to dismiss because the court found it reasonably conceivable that Elon Musk, a 22.1% stockholder of Tesla Motors, Inc., was a controlling stockholder and therefore Tesla’s 2016 acquisition of […]

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Threat of Falling High Status and Corporate Bribery: South Korean Evidence

What leads firms to engage in large-scale bribery of politicians? High-level politicians make decisions that shape the competitive landscape in the private sector, and recent years have witnessed a global surge in cases of blatant corruption involving prominent companies and senior politicians. But theory and evidence are scant about the firm-level determinants of corporate corruption […]

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Corporate Governance Deviance

Societies throughout the world utilize a wide range of corporate governance mechanisms to govern their corporations. Normally, most societies use rules and norms to get corporations to conform to traditional corporate governance practices; and most corporations do conform to this national governance logic. However, some corporations do not conform to the logic in which they […]

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Is There a Gender Gap in CEO Compensation?

Our research examines whether there is a gender pay gap in CEO compensation. Issues surrounding the gender pay gap have attracted considerable academic and media attention over the past few decades (Blau & Kahn, 2017). The growing presence of women in CEO roles has spurred interest in understanding how gender may affect the treatment of […]

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Lazard’s 1Q 2018 Activism Review

Key Observations on the Activist Environment in 1Q 2018 Source: Activist Insight, FactSet and public filings as of 3/31/2018. Note: All data is for campaigns conducted globally by U.S. and European activists at companies with market capitalizations greater than $500 million at time of campaign announcement. 1. Activist activity reached new heights in 1Q 2018 both […]

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Corporate Culture Risk and the Board

Introduction: “Where was the board?” Recent corporate scandals linked to problematic company cultures have resulted in questions such as “where was the board?” and “shouldn’t the board have known?” In some cases, board members themselves may have wondered why they were not informed of cultural problems and asked, “should we have conducted more due diligence?” […]

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