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

Responding to Objections to Shining Light on Corporate Political Spending (5): The Claim that Shareholder Proposals Requesting Disclosure Do Not Receive Majority Support

In our first four posts in this series (collected here), we examined four objections raised by opponents of mandating disclosure of political spending and explained why these objections provide no basis for opposing such rules. In this post, we focus on a fifth objection raised by opponents of these rules: the claim that the SEC […]

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The Separation of Investments and Management

This paper suggests that the essence of these funds and their regulation lies not just in the nature of their investments, as is widely supposed, but also—and more importantly—in the nature of their organization. Specifically, every enterprise that we commonly think of as an investment fund adopts a pattern of organization that I am calling […]

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Financial Reporting Quality of U.S. Private and Public Firms

In our paper, Financial Reporting Quality of U.S. Private and Public Firms, forthcoming in The Accounting Review, we use a new database that contains accounting data for a large sample of U.S. private firms and provide an investigation of financial reporting quality (FRQ) of U.S. private versus public firms. Private firms are an important source […]

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Private Equity Firms as Gatekeepers

My article, Private Equity Firms as Gatekeepers, identifies an important and overlooked way in which private equity creates value: private equity firms act as gatekeepers in the debt markets. As repeat players, private equity firms establish reputations with lenders that are tied to the credit performance of the companies that they acquire and manage. In […]

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Large and Middle Market PE/Public Target Deals: 2012 Review

Overview Schulte Roth & Zabel regularly conducts studies on private equity buyer acquisitions of U.S. public companies with enterprise values in the $100 million to $500 million range (“middle market” deals) and greater than $500 million (“large market” deals) to monitor market practice and deal trends reflected by these transactions. During the period from January […]

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Challenges Facing Compliance Officers

First, let me thank you all for taking part in today’s program. Events like this are an invaluable tool for regulators and market participants alike — not least of all because we get to see who the early frontrunners are for the next America’s Funniest Compliance Officer contest. As I’m sure you all know, that’s […]

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Corporate Short-Termism – In the Boardroom and in the Courtroom

Last month I posted to SRRN Corporate Short-Termism – In the Boardroom and in the Courtroom, which the Business Lawyer will publish this August. In this paper, I examine a long-held view in corporate circles has been that furious rapid trading in stock markets has been increasing in recent decades, justifying more judicial measures that […]

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Preferring Foreign Depositors

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has issued a proposed regulation intended to address an emerging issue in international banking: how to grant non-US branch deposits equal treatment with US deposits in the event of the bank’s insolvency. Below are both big-picture and technical issues that need to be addressed in order to make the proposal […]

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Responding to Objections to Shining Light on Corporate Political Spending (4): The Claim that Such Disclosure Would Give a Political Advantage to Unions

In our first three posts in this series (available here, here and here), we examined three objections raised by opponents of mandating disclosure of political spending and explained why these objections provide no basis for opposing such rules. In this post, we focus on a fourth objection that opponents of these rules have raised: the […]

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BDCs and 1940 Act Funds

Goldman Sachs’ recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a “business development company,” or BDC, should be of interest to financial services companies, particularly banking institutions structuring and restructuring their operations and product offerings to comply with the Volcker Rule’s prohibitions on investing in and sponsoring “covered funds.” A BDC is […]

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