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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 Christine Davine
- Renata J. Ferrari
- Andrew Freedman
- Ray Garcia
- Byron Georgiou
- Joseph Hall
- Jason M. Halper William P. Mills
- David Millstone
- Theodore Mirvis
- Philip Richter
- Elina Tetelbaum
- Sebastian Tiller
- Marc Trevino Jonathan Watkins
- Steven J. Williams
HLS Faculty & Senior Fellows
Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Weekly Roundup: December 1-7, 2017
Do Managers Give Hometown Labor an Edge? Posted by Scott E. Yonker (Cornell University), on Friday, December 1, 2017 Tags: Behavioral finance, Firm valuation, Management, Manager characteristics, Managerial style The ICO Gold Rush Posted by Dirk Zetzsche (University of Luxembourg), Ross Buckley (University of New South Wales), and Douglas Arner (University of Hong Kong), on Friday, December 1, 2017 Tags: Asset bubbles, Blockchain, Capital formation, Crowdfunding, Disclosure, ESMA, ICOs, Information […]
Click here to read the complete postActivists at the Gate
Several recent decisions applying Delaware law offer helpful insight about the impact that activist investor involvement has on board decision-making leading to a transaction and how those decisions will be reviewed by the courts in any subsequent litigation. These cases demonstrate the importance of careful responses by boards of directors to satisfy their fiduciary duties […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, Court Cases, Mergers & Acquisitions, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Boards of Directors, Delaware cases, Delaware law, Mergers & acquisitions, Shareholder activism
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Definitive Agreements
Private equity deal professionals frequently enter into indications of interest, term sheets, letters of intent, and other preliminary agreements as part of the process of getting to a “definitive” agreement to acquire or sell a business. A previous post to Weil’s Global Private Equity Insights blog warned about the risk of accidentally contracting as a […]
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Posted in Court Cases, Mergers & Acquisitions, Practitioner Publications, Private Equity
Tagged Acquisition agreements, Confidentiality, Contracts, Mergers & acquisitions, Private equity
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Analysis of New Glass Lewis Guidelines
Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday, Glass Lewis released its 2018 policy guidelines for U.S. and Canadian companies as well as updates to its guidelines on shareholder initiatives. In addition to clarifying several existing policies, this year’s policy update includes an important change regarding the threshold for board responsiveness along with new policies on board gender […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, Corporate Elections & Voting, Executive Compensation, Institutional Investors, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Board composition, Boards of Directors, Compensation ratios, Diversity, Dual-class stock, Executive Compensation, Glass Lewis, Institutional Investors, Management, Proxy advisors, Proxy voting, Say on pay, Shareholder proposals, Shareholder voting, Virtual meetings
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Debt Contract Terms and Creditor Control
Debt contracts use covenants as a way to manage conflicts between debt holders and equity holders. Covenants accomplish this goal by limiting the ability of debtors to engage in excessive risk taking, dividend payouts, claim dilution, and other actions that can harm the interests of creditors. But different types of creditors go about limiting the […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Bankruptcy & Financial Distress, Comparative Corporate Governance & Regulation, Court Cases, Empirical Research
Tagged Agency costs, Bankruptcy, Banks, Bondholders, Bonds, Contracts, Covenants, Debt contracts, Debt-equity ratio, Debtor-creditor law, Delaware cases, Delaware law, Derivatives, Fiduciary duties, Risk-taking, State law
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Analysis of SEC Enforcement Division Annual Report
On November 15, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Enforcement released its annual report detailing its priorities for the coming year and evaluating enforcement actions that occurred during Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2017. The Report captures the SEC during a period of transition—Chairman Jay Clayton assumed the helm of the Commission in May 2017 […]
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Posted in Financial Regulation, Institutional Investors, Legislative & Regulatory Developments, Practitioner Publications, Securities Litigation & Enforcement, Securities Regulation
Tagged Asset management, Broker-dealers, Cybersecurity, Financial regulation, Institutional Investors, Investment advisers, Investor protection, Misconduct, SEC, SEC enforcement, Securities enforcement, Securities regulation
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SEC Chairman’s Remarks on Small Business Capital Formation
Welcome everyone to the 36th annual Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. We have made it a priority to reach out to investors and small businesses across the country—including in Texas—and I am delighted that this year’s Forum is being held in Austin. The Texas capital is known for its lively music scene, but […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Practitioner Publications, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Capital formation, Disclosure, Investor protection, Retail investors, SEC, Securities regulation, Small firms
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Shareholder Proposals in an Era of Reform
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton has emphasized that corporate governance rulemaking under his leadership will be designed to maximize the long-term interests of the retail shareholder. On several occasions over the past year, Chairman Clayton has indicated that the shareholder proposal process is in need of reform, as it is an area in […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, Corporate Elections & Voting, Legislative & Regulatory Developments, Practitioner Publications, Securities Regulation
Tagged Boards of Directors, Compliance and disclosure interpretation, No-action letters, Rule 14a-8, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation, Shareholder proposals, Shareholder voting
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Institutional Investor Attention and Demand for Inconsequential Disclosures
Much research on voluntary disclosure focuses on decisions stemming from persistent factors. For example, the economic forces that give rise to a firm’s level of proprietary costs are persistent, and how the voluntary disclosure decision is affected by proprietary costs is persistent. Institutional investor ownership (IO) is another relatively stable determinant of disclosure. Prior research […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure, Boards of Directors, Empirical Research, Institutional Investors
Tagged Agency costs, Disclosure, Information environment, Institutional Investors, Liquidity, Management, Oversight, Ownership, Voluntary Disclosure
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