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

Final Rule Issued on Systemically Important Firms, Many Unknowns Remain

On April 3, 2012 the Financial Stability Oversight Council issued its final rule and interpretive guidance governing its process for designating a nonbank financial company as a systemically important financial institution under the Dodd-Frank Act. The adoption of the Final Rule marks the completion of the highly anticipated standards for designating SIFIs, a process that […]

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Tailspotting

In the paper, Tailspotting: How Disclosure, Stock Prices and Volatility Change When CEOs Fly to Their Vacation Homes, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, I document a close connection between the timing of corporate news disclosures and CEOs’ personal vacation schedules. I find that companies tend to disclose favorable news just before CEOs […]

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Twelve Shareholder Declassification Proposals Submitted by SRP-Represented Investors Win Approval with Average Support of 79%

Editor’s Note: Professor Lucian Bebchuk is the Director of the Harvard Law School Shareholder Rights Project (SRP), and Scott Hirst is the SRP’s Associate Director. Any views expressed and positions taken by the SRP and its representatives should be attributed solely to the SRP and not to Harvard Law School or Harvard University. Although the […]

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Continuing Developments in the 2012 Proxy Season

Editor’s Note: The following post comes to us from Stuart N. Alperin and Regina Olshan, partners in the Executive Compensation and Benefits group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and is based on a Skadden alert. This alert is the second in a series; the prior alert is available here. As we continue […]

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Posted in Executive Compensation, Practitioner Publications | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Court Rejects Selective Waiver Doctrine for Privileged Materials

Corporations subject to criminal and civil regulatory investigations have long grappled with the highly charged decision over whether to provide the government with privileged communications and attorney work product or whether to maintain those materials as privileged despite a governmental inquiry. On the one hand, a corporation may hope to avoid criminal prosecution or civil […]

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Proposals for Binding Shareholder Votes on Executive Pay in the UK

On March 14, 2012, the UK Government published a consultation paper on its proposals to give shareholders of quoted companies a greater influence over executive pay. The Government proposes to introduce a binding shareholder vote on executive pay policy (possibly requiring a 65% or 75% super majority), a non-binding shareholder vote on the subsequent application […]

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Defrauded Investors Deserve Their Day in Court

Editor’s Note: Luis A. Aguilar is a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This post is based on a statement from Commissioner Aguilar; the full statement, including footnotes, is available here. The views expressed in the post are those of Commissioner Aguilar and do not necessarily reflect those of the Securities and Exchange […]

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Posted in Legislative & Regulatory Developments, Mergers & Acquisitions, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Court Rules on Short-swing Liability Rules

On March 26, 2012, in Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC v. Simmonds, the U.S. Supreme Court held 8-0 that the two-year statute of limitations for suits under the short-swing liability rules of Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is not tolled (i.e., suspended) until an insider files a Section 16(a) disclosure statement; […]

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An Update on the Forum Selection Bylaw Cases

In February 2012, several purported class action lawsuits were filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery challenging corporate bylaw amendments adopted by companies pursuant to 8 Del. C. § 109. Generally speaking, the challenged bylaw amendments would require that certain types of corporate law claims by shareholders be brought and resolved in the Delaware Court […]

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Management Quality, Venture Capital Backing, and Initial Public Offerings

In the paper, Management Quality, Venture Capital Backing, and Initial Public Offerings, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we use hand-collected data on the quality and reputation of the management teams of a large sample of 3,240 entrepreneurial firms going public during 1993-2004 to conduct the first large-sample study of the relationship between […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Banking & Financial Institutions, Comparative Corporate Governance & Regulation, Empirical Research | Tagged , , | 1 Comment