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Program on Corporate Governance Advisory Board
- Peter Atkins
- David Bell
- Kerry E. Berchem
- Richard Brand
- Daniel Burch
- Paul Choi
- Jesse Cohn
- Arthur B. Crozier
- Renata J. Ferrari
- Andrew Freedman
- Ray Garcia
- Joseph Hall
- Jason M. Halper William P. Mills
- David Millstone
- Theodore Mirvis
- Philip Richter
- Elina Tetelbaum
- Sebastian Tiller
- Marc Trevino
- Steven J. Williams
Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Federal Reserve Takes Severe and Unprecedented Action Against Wells Fargo: Implications for Directors of All Public Companies
In a stinging rebuke, the Federal Reserve on February 2nd issued an enforcement action barring Wells Fargo from increasing its total assets and mandating substantial corporate governance and risk management actions. The Federal Reserve noted in its press release that Wells will replace three current board members by April and a fourth board member by […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Banking & Financial Institutions, Boards of Directors, Financial Regulation, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Banks, Board monitoring, Boards of Directors, Compliance & ethics, Federal Reserve, Financial institutions, Financial regulation, Management, Misconduct, Oversight, Risk, Risk management, Wells Fargo
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Underwriter Competition and Bargaining Power in the Corporate Bond Market
The global bond market is a major source of corporate financing, and has been rapidly growing in recent years, reaching nearly $50 trillion in outstanding value as of 2013. At the same time, the bond underwriting industry has become increasingly more concentrated: In 2013, the ten largest underwriters had a combined market share of about […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research
Tagged Bonds, Contracts, Corporate debt, Debt contracts, Rent-seeking, Underwriting
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FSOC Designation Treasury Report: A Fundamental Shift
Creating an inter-agency panel of financial regulators to monitor systemic risk was a hallmark achievement of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), as Dodd-Frank coined it, was designed to correct perceived deficiencies in regulation—many different regulators oversaw different pieces of the financial system but […]
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Posted in Banking & Financial Institutions, Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Banks, CHOICE Act, Dodd-Frank Act, Financial crisis, Financial institutions, Financial regulation, FSOC, SIFIs, Systemic risk, Too big to fail, Treasury Department
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2017 Financial Stability Report
The OFR’s Financial Stability Report presents our annual assessment of U.S. financial stability. The financial system is now far more resilient than it was at the dawn of the financial crisis 10 years ago. But new vulnerabilities have emerged. Chapter 1 of the complete publication (available here) highlights three potential threats to financial stability: vulnerability […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Banking & Financial Institutions, Bankruptcy & Financial Distress, Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation
Tagged Asset bubbles, Bankruptcy, Banks, Derivatives, Financial crisis, Financial institutions, Financial regulation, Leverage, Liquidity, Market efficiency, Market reaction, Risk management, SIFIs, Systemic risk, Transparency
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Stock Market Evaluation, Moon Shots, and Corporate Innovation
We test how stock market overvaluation affects corporate innovative activities and success. Under what we call the misvaluation hypothesis of innovation, firms respond to market overvaluation by engaging more heavily in innovative activities, resulting in higher future innovative output. We further argue that overvaluation encourages the most risky and creative forms of innovation (“moon shots”). […]
Click here to read the complete postWeekly Roundup: January 26–February 1, 2018
Corporate Governance Update: Boards, Sexual Harassment, and Gender Diversity Posted by David A. Katz and Laura A. McIntosh, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, on Friday, January 26, 2018 Tags: Board composition, Boards of Directors, Corporate culture, Diversity, Misconduct, Oversight, Risk assessment, Risk management Informed Trading and Cybersecurity Breaches Posted by Joshua Mitts and Eric Talley (Columbia Law School), on Friday, January 26, 2018 Tags: Cybersecurity, Disclosure, Information asymmetries, Information […]
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Posted in Weekly Roundup
Tagged Weekly Roundup
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The Changing Face of Shareholder Activism
Activism is about driving change. Shareholders turn to it when they think management isn’t maximizing a company’s potential. Activism can include anything from a full-blown proxy contest that seeks to replace the entire board, to shareholder proposals asking for policy changes or disclosure on some issue. In other cases, shareholders want to meet with a […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, Corporate Elections & Voting, Institutional Investors, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Boards of Directors, Engagement, Hedge funds, Institutional Investors, Mutual funds, Pension funds, Proxy access, Shareholder activism, Shareholder proposals, Shareholder voting
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Disasters and Disclosures
Corporate disasters happen with unnerving frequency. These can be visibly dramatic events like the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig catastrophe, with loss of life, environmental damage, and great consequential economic loss. Many are (or are also) legal compliance disasters: a massive fine or penalty imposed on the company after government authorities determine that the corporation […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure, Comparative Corporate Governance & Regulation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Securities Regulation
Tagged Corporate Social Responsibility, Disclosure, ESG, Fraud-on-the-Market, Information environment, Reputation, Risk disclosure, Risk management, Rule 10b-5, SEC, SEC enforcement, Securities enforcement, Securities fraud, Securities litigation, Sustainability
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