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

Money Market Fund Reform in the United States

Editor’s Note: This post comes to us from Andrew J. Donohue, Director of the Division of Investment Management at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and is based on a recent keynote address by Mr. Donohue to the Annual Policy Seminar of the European Fund and Asset Management Association, the full text of which is available […]

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Further Discussion of the Senate Comprehensive Financial Reform Bill

On May 20, 2010, the United States Senate passed, by a margin of 59 to 39, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (the “Bill”), which is aimed at strengthening the U.S. financial system and preventing future crises. The Bill is comprehensive in scope, proposing significant changes to the structure of federal financial regulation […]

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Law and Financial Development

In the paper, Law and Financial Development: What We Are Learning from Time-Series Evidence, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, my co-authors (Simon Deakin at the University of Cambridge; Viviana Mollica at Queen Mary University of London; and Mathias Siems at the University of East Anglia) and I explore the empirical evidence regarding […]

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Other People’s Money: The Unrealized Conflicts of Securities Lending

The primary goal of most institutional investors, such as public pension funds, is to prudently invest their assets and develop a portfolio that will accommodate long-term financial needs. Accordingly, these investors typically hold large blocks of individual securities in their portfolio, hoping that the value of those securities will appreciate over time. Over the past […]

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The Relation Between Firm-Level Corporate Governance and Market Value: A Study of India

In our paper, The Relation between Firm-level Corporate Governance and Market Value: A Study of India, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we provide a detailed overview of the practices of publicly traded firms in India, and identify areas where governance practices are relatively strong or weak, relative to developed countries. We also […]

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Implicit Compensation

Each year, CEOs sell billions of dollars of stock in their firms. Previous empirical work demonstrates that CEOs earn abnormal returns on these trades, suggesting some trading based on material non-public information. Critics of CEO compensation practices offer this fact as evidence of a manager-dominated process. According to their story, CEOs earn “extra” compensation from […]

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Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting a Stop to the Earnings Game

In a Journal of Applied Corporate Finance paper, Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting a Stop to the Earnings Game, my co-author, Joseph Fuller of The Monitor Group, and I discuss the notion of putting an end to the “earnings game.” This requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure | Tagged | 2 Comments

Supreme Court to Decide Rule on Class Waivers in Arbitration Clauses

The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in a case that is likely to resolve important outstanding questions regarding attempts to limit arbitration clauses so that they do not permit class action arbitrations. The case, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, No. 09-893, presents the question whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state laws holding such […]

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Bankers Beware

A recent Delaware Chancery bench decision from VC Laster denying a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the merger of Zenith National with Fairfax Holdings suggests increased sensitivity around issues of conflicts of interest for financial advisers. In addressing disclosure claims relating to a potential conflict of interest affecting Zenith’s financial adviser, the court […]

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Lucian Bebchuk’s Keynote Speech at the ICGN Annual Meeting

Lucian Bebchuk delivered a keynote address at the annual meeting of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) taking place this month in Toronto, Canada. The meeting drew over 400 participants from 40 countries. Bebchuk’s speech focused on reforming executive pay structures to tighten the link between pay and long-term performance. The address built on three […]

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