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

CEO Compensation and Board Structure

The purpose of this article is to examine how the new board requirements that were enacted in response to corporate scandals in 2001 and 2002 affected compensation decisions. We use the difference-in-difference approach to compare changes in compensation between firms that were already complying with these requirements and firms that were not complying with them. […]

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A United Nations Proposal Defining Corporate Social Responsibility For Human Rights

On behalf of our pro bono client Oxfam America, my colleagues, Ira M. Millstein, E. Norman Veasey, Harvey Goldschmid, Steven Alan Reiss, Ashley R. Altschuler, and I have prepared a memorandum that discusses the report, Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights, prepared by Harvard Professor John G. Ruggie, the Secretary-General’s […]

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A Different Perspective on CSX/TCI: Should Courts Reject a Private Right of Action Under Section 13(d)?

While the bulk of the commentary about last week’s CSX/TCI opinion has focused on the requirement for disclosure of derivatives under the Williams Act, the hedge fund defendants missed a great opportunity to attack the odious practice of management using shareholder money to sue a dissident on any pretext in order to entrench itself. Generally, […]

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Labor and Corporate Governance: International Evidence from Restructuring Decisions

My paper, co-authored with Julian Atanassov of the University of Oregon, was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance. This paper investigates how labor and investors’ relative influence and firm level variables interact to affect corporate governance. A key conclusion is that weak investor protection combined with strong union laws are conducive to […]

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Court Rules on Derivatives and Beneficial Ownership Reporting in CSX/ TCI case

“The securities markets operate in the real world, not in a law school contracts classroom. Any determination of beneficial ownership that failed to take account of the practical realities of that world would be open to the gravest abuse.” That is just a teaser of an opinion in which every page is a gem. Judge […]

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SEC Advises on Disclosure of Hedge Fund Positions

The beat goes on — in the on-going CSX/TCI litigation before Judge Kaplan of SDNY which is expected to yield an important ruling on the application of the old school reporting requirements of Section 13(d) to the brave new world of hedge funds/derivatives/synthetics. In a recent letter responding to the Court’s inquiry, the Staff of […]

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Uncorporate Governance

Although this blog uses the name Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog, I want to introduce a new but closely related topic – uncorporate governance. By uncorporate I mean partnership-type business associations (i.e., general partnerships, limited liability companies and limited partnerships) and the default rules and norms that are associated with these business forms. One […]

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Enforcement Strategies in UK Corporate Governance: A Roadmap and Empirical Assessment

The UK has, similarly to the US, deep and liquid securities markets and widely-dispersed ownership of publicly-traded firms. The central problem of corporate governance for publicly-traded firms in the UK is rendering managers accountable to shareholders. My recent paper, entitled Enforcement Strategies in UK Corporate Governance: A Roadmap and Empirical Assessment, provides a roadmap of […]

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Shareholder Litigation and Changes in Disclosure Behavior

While the deterrent function of private litigation has been studied in some detail, we investigate the existence of another potential benefit of securities litigation: a change in the conduct of the firms involved in private litigation. Specifically, we examine changes in the disclosure behavior of firms involved in 827 disclosure-related class-action securities litigation cases filed […]

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Advance Notice Bylaws: Lessons from Recent Cases

My colleague Laura A.McIntosh and I have written an article recently published in the New York Law Journal on May 22, 2008 entitled Corporate Governance Update: Advance Notice Bylaws: Lessons from Recent Cases. Until recently, advance notice bylaws have been unremarkable and fairly uncomplicated provisions, generally easily complied with and largely uncontroversial. In two recent […]

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