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

DOL Final “Investment Advice” Regulation

On April 6, 2016, the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) promulgated final regulations (the “Final Regulations”) defining the circumstances in which a person will be treated as a fiduciary under both the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) and Section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) by reason of providing investment […]

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In re Kenneth Cole: Business Judgment Review of Controlling Stockholder Mergers

[On May 5, 2016,] the New York Court of Appeals held that business judgment review is available in the context of going-private mergers of controlled companies. In re Kenneth Cole Prods., Inc. S’holder Litig. , No. 54 (N.Y. May 5, 2016). The decision adopts the same standards set forth by the Delaware Supreme Court in […]

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Takeovers and Takings in the Next Economic Crisis

Economic crises can reverberate in the legal system long after they end. One potential echo from the last recession involves Takings Clause challenges to the federal government’s rescue of several failing companies. As I explain in a recent essay, Resetting the Baseline of Ownership: Takings and Investor Expectations After the Bailouts, perhaps the most significant […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Bankruptcy & Financial Distress, Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation, Securities Regulation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Takeovers and Takings in the Next Economic Crisis

Weekly Roundup: April 29–May 5, 2016

Executive Compensation Incentives Contingent on Long-Term Accounting Performance Posted by Lingling Wang, Tulane University, on Friday, April 29, 2016 Tags: Accounting, Accounting standards, Boards of Directors, Executive Compensation, Financial reporting, Firm performance, Incentives, Long-Term Value, Management, Pay for performance, Performance measures, Short-termism,Stock options Agencies’ Resolution Plan Feedback Posted by Dan Ryan, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, on Saturday, […]

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Incentive Compensation for Financial Institutions: Reproposal

Four of the six Agencies have jointly issued a proposed rule implementing Dodd-Frank Act Section 956 regarding incentive compensation paid by covered financial institutions. An earlier version of the rule was proposed in 2011.

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Mergers and Heightened Regulatory Risk

As U.S. corporations face the later stages of a prolonged economic recovery, with the prospect of slow growth, a number of strategies have been considered to meet the challenge of producing meaningful profit improvement in a short timeframe—with corporations increasingly turning to tax inversion transactions (for the dramatic and immediate reduction of tax expense) and […]

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Corporate Resilience to Banking Crises

Although banking crises are costly, common, and heavily researched, there is surprisingly little research on corporate resilience to systemic banking crises. In an earlier paper, [1] we showed that strong shareholder protection laws mitigate the adverse effects of banking crises by easing the ability of firms to issue equity when crises curtail the flow of […]

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SEC Enforcement and Internal Control Failures

We have previously written about how, over the past few years, the SEC and other regulatory agencies have devoted substantial resources to investigations regarding allegations that public companies have inadequate internal controls and/or a system for reporting those controls. See here, here and here. That effort shows no signs of waning. As recently as March […]

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What Do Insiders Know?

The evidence that share repurchases and seasoned equity offers (SEOs) contain value-relevant information is extensive in the corporate finance literature. In addition, we also know that insider trading is informative about future firm value. What is less clear is how trading by firms’ insiders prior to corporate events interacts with firms’ actions and whether this […]

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NASDAQ and Disclosure of Third-Party Compensation for Directors

NASDAQ has proposed changes to its listing standards to require disclosure of third-party compensation arrangements for directors and nominees. After withdrawing an initial proposal on this subject, NASDAQ has revised the proposal, and it has been published in the Federal Register for public comment. Comments are due on or before April 26, 2016. The proposal […]

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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Boards of Directors, Corporate Elections & Voting, Practitioner Publications, Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on NASDAQ and Disclosure of Third-Party Compensation for Directors