-
Supported By:
Subscribe or Follow
Program on Corporate Governance Advisory Board
- William Ackman
- Peter Atkins
- David Bell
- Kerry E. Berchem
- Richard Brand
- Daniel Burch
- Paul Choi
- Jesse Cohn
- Arthur B. Crozier Christine Davine
- Renata J. Ferrari
- John Finley
- Andrew Freedman
- Ray Garcia
- Byron Georgiou
- Joseph Hall
- Jason M. Halper
- Paul Hilal
- Carl Icahn William P. Mills
- David Millstone
- Theodore Mirvis
- Philip Richter
- Elina Tetelbaum
- Sebastian Tiller
- Marc Trevino Jonathan Watkins
- Steven J. Williams
- Daniel Wolf
HLS Faculty & Senior Fellows
Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Buybacks Around the World
Due to regulatory changes, share repurchases have become increasingly common around the world in the last 15 years. As such, in our paper, Buybacks Around the World, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we first examine whether the findings based on U.S. data hold up in an international setting, and whether examining non-U.S. […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, International Corporate Governance & Regulation
Tagged Agency costs, Firm valuation, International governance, Repurchases, Shareholder value
Comments Off on Buybacks Around the World
Nanotechnology and the S&P 500
Corporations globally have been investing $9 billion annually in nanotechnology, yet less than one-tenth of S&P 500 companies report to shareholders and other stakeholders on their involvement in nanotechnology. Although it has the potential to revolutionize industries like healthcare, information technology and energy systems, nanotechnology’s promise is tethered to unique environmental, health and safety (EH&S) […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Corporate Social Responsibility, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Corporate Social Responsibility, Disclosure, Environmental disclosure, Nanotechnology, R&D, Risk disclosure, Sustainability
Comments Off on Nanotechnology and the S&P 500
Justice Deferred is Justice Denied
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), deferred prosecution agreements are said to occupy an “important middle ground” between declining to prosecute on the one hand, and trials or guilty pleas on the other. A top DOJ official has declared that, over the last decade, the agreements have become a “mainstay” of white collar […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Academic Research, Securities Litigation & Enforcement
Tagged Accountability, Corporate crime, Deferred prosecution agreements, DOJ, Securities enforcement
Comments Off on Justice Deferred is Justice Denied
Ten Key Points from the Final Risk Retention Rule
This week six federal agencies (Fed, OCC, FDIC, SEC, FHFA, and HUD) finalized their joint asset-backed securities (ABS) risk retention rule. As expected, the final rule requires sponsors of ABS to retain an interest equal to at least 5% of the credit risk in a securitization vehicle. 1. A win for the mortgage industry: The […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Financial Regulation, Practitioner Publications, Securities Regulation
Tagged Asset-backed securities, CLOs, Credit risk, FDIC, Federal Reserve, Financial regulation, Mortgage lending, OCC, Risk, SEC, Securities regulation, Securitization, Skin in the game
Comments Off on Ten Key Points from the Final Risk Retention Rule
CFTC Clarifies and Expands Relief Relating to Delegation of CPO Responsibilities
On October 15, 2014, the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (the “Division”) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC” or “Commission”) issued CFTC No-Action Letter No. 14-126 (“Letter 14-126”), which sets forth a number of conditions with which commodity pool operators (“CPOs”) that delegate their CPO responsibilities (the “Delegating CPO”) to registered CPOs […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Derivatives, Financial Regulation, Practitioner Publications
Tagged CFTC, Commodities, Derivatives, Financial regulation, Futures, No-action letters
Comments Off on CFTC Clarifies and Expands Relief Relating to Delegation of CPO Responsibilities
2014 Annual Corporate Directors Survey
Over the last several years, we’ve observed certain trends that are shaping corporate governance and which we believe will impact the board of the future. We structured our 2014 Annual Corporate Directors Survey to get directors’ views on these trends and other topics including:
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Boards of Directors, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Board communication, Board composition, Board performance, Boards of Directors, Cybersecurity, Diversity, Risk management, Shareholder activism, Surveys
Comments Off on 2014 Annual Corporate Directors Survey
2014 Corporate Governance Review
Shareholder activism continued to thrive in the 2014 proxy season, spurring corporate action as well as renewed engagement between issuers and investors. While the total number of shareholder proposals declined in 2014, lively activity continued with calls for independent chairs as well as burgeoning growth for social issues. And while few in number, change-in-control payout […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Boards of Directors, Corporate Elections & Voting, Executive Compensation, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Boards of Directors, Engagement, Executive Compensation, Proxy access, Proxy voting, Say on pay, Shareholder activism, Shareholder proposals
Comments Off on 2014 Corporate Governance Review
Documenting The Deal
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, gave a lecture to a the Delaware Business Law Forum that will be published in The Business Lawyer in May, next year. The essay, titled […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Academic Research, Mergers & Acquisitions, Practitioner Publications, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Conflicts of interest, Corporate governance, Delaware law, Financial advisers, Mergers & acquisitions, Securities litigation
Comments Off on Documenting The Deal
Morrison at Four: A Survey of Its Impact on Securities Litigation
My essay, Morrison at Four: A Survey of Its Impact on Securities Litigation, published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform as part of a collection of essays on the shifting legal landscape governing federal claims involving foreign disputes, recounts the extraordinary impact of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Morrison v. […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Court Cases, Practitioner Publications, Securities Litigation & Enforcement
Tagged Extraterritoriality, Foreign squared/cubed, Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., Section 10(b), Securities litigation, Supreme Court, U.S. federal courts
Comments Off on Morrison at Four: A Survey of Its Impact on Securities Litigation
Mutual Funds and Information Diffusion: The Role of Country-Level Governance
If the institutions of a country (e.g., property rights and contracting institutions) jeopardize the quality of its financial market, can the market by itself put in force corrective mechanisms that counterbalance and offset such negative impact? This question is at the core of modern financial economics because it essentially asks whether the market plays a […]
Click here to read the complete post
Posted in Academic Research, International Corporate Governance & Regulation
Tagged Information asymmetries, Information environment, International governance, Liquidity, Market efficiency, Mutual funds
Comments Off on Mutual Funds and Information Diffusion: The Role of Country-Level Governance