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

Navigating the Cybersecurity Storm in 2016

“Our nation is being challenged as never before to defend its interests and values in cyberspace. Adversaries increasingly seek to magnify their impact and extend their reach through cyber exploitation, disruption and destruction.” —Admiral Mike Rogers, Head of US Cyber Command September 9, 2015 A very recent article in the UK publication The Guardian, entitled […]

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The Pursuit of Gender Parity in the American Boardroom

The Women’s Forum of New York remains the critical, groundbreaking organization for successful women that it was when it held its first meeting in 1974. That was, by coincidence, the year I graduated from Columbia Law School. As one benchmark of progress, that year’s graduating class was only 17 percent women. Today that number is […]

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Increasing Transparency of Alternative Trading Systems

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 […]

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ISS 2016 Voting Policies

[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. […]

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Corporate Law and The Limits of Private Ordering

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 […]

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Program Hiring Post-Doctoral Fellows and Senior Associates

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 […]

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Management Philosophies and Styles in Family and Non-Family Firms

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 […]

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Derivatives and Uncleared Margins

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 […]

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19 Law Professors Submit Amicus Brief in Union Political Spending Case

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 […]

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The Continuing Work of Enhancing Small Business Capital Formation

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, […]

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