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

ISS Details Governance QuickScore 3.0 Updates

Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”) has released a technical document detailing the factors and scoring methodology of Governance QuickScore 3.0, which ISS plans to launch on November 24, 2014. [1] Corporate issuers may verify, update or correct the data used to calculate their scores, via ISS’s data verification site, through 8:00 p.m. EST on November […]

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Relative Total Shareholder Return Performance Awards

Since 2010, performance-contingent awards have been the most widely used long-term incentive (LTI) grant type among the Top 250 companies [1] and are now in use by 89% of the sample. The prevalence of performance awards and investor preferences have spurred considerable interest in relative total shareholder return (TSR) as a performance metric. Relative TSR […]

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Executive Compensation in Controlled Companies

More than a decade ago, Professors Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried published the seminal work on the role and significance of managerial power theory in executive compensation. Their work cultivated a vivid debate on executive compensation in companies with dispersed ownership. The discourse on the optimality of executive pay in controlled companies, however, has been […]

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Cyber Security, Cyber Governance, and Cyber Insurance

JP Morgan Chase. Community Health Systems. The Home Depot. Kmart. There has been no shortage of data breaches in recent weeks—with new developments on an almost daily basis. The age of cyber hactivisim, cyber extortion, and cyber terrorism is here, and it is not going away any time soon. Data security issues are no longer […]

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Controlling Stockholders in Delaware—More Than a Number

Two recent Chancery Court decisions, Crimson Exploration and KKR Financial, confirm that Delaware takes a flexible and fact-specific approach to determining whether a stockholder is deemed to be “controlling” for purposes of judicial review of a transaction. It is important for dealmakers to understand when the courts may make a determination of control, both to […]

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Governance and Comovement Under Common Ownership

Most existing theories of blockholder governance consider a single firm. However, in reality, many institutional investors hold blocks in multiple firms. In our paper, Governance and Comovement Under Common Ownership, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we study the implications of common ownership for corporate governance and asset pricing. In particular, we address […]

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Harvard Convenes the Executive Compensation Roundtable

The Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and the Harvard Law School Program on Institutional Investors convened the Harvard Roundtable on Executive Compensation last Thursday, November 6. The event brought together for a roundtable discussion prominent representatives of the investor, issuer, advisor, and academic communities. Participants in the event, and the topics of discussion, […]

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Strategic News Releases in Equity Vesting Months

In our paper, Strategic News Releases in Equity Vesting Months, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we study the link between the equity vesting schedules of CEOs and the timing of corporate news releases. We show that, in months in which the CEO has equity vesting, the firm releases more news. This is […]

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Why Commissioner Gallagher is Mistaken about Disclosure of Political Spending

Last week, Securities and Exchange Commissioner Daniel Gallagher took the unusual step of publishing a letter to the editor of the New York Times expressing his opposition to the SEC even considering companies’ disclosure of political spending. In his letter, the Commissioner vows “to fight to keep” the subject off the SEC’s agenda. As explained […]

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Making It Easier for Directors To “Do The Right Thing”

Leo Strine, Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, and the Austin Wakeman Scott Lecturer on Law and a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance, has recently published an article in the Harvard Business Law Review. The essay, titled Making It Easier For Directors To “Do The Right Thing”, is available […]

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