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HLS Faculty & Senior Fellows
Author Archives: Tarik Samman
Weekly Roundup: August 15-21, 2025
Retail Access to Private Markets Posted by Ben Bates (Harvard Law School), on Friday, August 15, 2025 Tags: Business Development Companies, Investment Risk, private market, Retail Private Funds, SEC Ahead of the Curve: Factoring the Cost of Carbon into Long-Term Decision-Making Posted by Allen He, Joel Paula, and Jessica Pollock, FCLTGlobal, on Saturday, August 16, […]
Click here to read the complete postQ2 2025 Gender Diversity Index
Gender diversity on corporate boards showed signs of stagnation in the second quarter of 2025. The latest Equilar Gender Diversity Index (GDI) sits at 0.60, where 1.0 represents gender parity between men and women across Russell 3000 boards. This marks only a slight change from Q4 2023, when the GDI measured 0.59. Other than a […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged Board of Directors, Diversity, Gender Diversity, Russell 3000
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ISS and Glass Lewis Launch Annual Global Policy Surveys Signaling 2026 Changes
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis have launched their annual policy surveys (available here and here) to help inform potential changes to their voting policies in advance of the 2026 proxy season. The surveys address, among other topics, shareholder rights, shareholder proposals, governance and risk oversight, diversity, and executive and director compensation. Survey questions […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged Board of Directors, Glass Lewis, ISS, Shareholders
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DEI in Transition: 2025 Corporate Diversity Disclosure Trends
This report draws on recent disclosure data to examine how US public companies are recalibrating public reporting on diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI)—focusing on shifts in language, workforce and board demographic disclosures, board oversight structures, and executive compensation practices. Trusted Insights for What’s Ahead® Corporate public DEI messaging and communications are undergoing a legal- and […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged Corporate governance, dei, Disclosure, Diversity
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Delaware Rulings on M&A Indemnification Provisions Stress the Need for Careful Drafting
Delaware courts are frequently called upon to interpret indemnification provisions linked to representations and warranties, which serve as potential remedies for losses, dictating when and how one party must make whole the other. Transaction parties often heavily negotiate indemnification provisions because they are valuable mechanisms for allocating risks and transaction costs. Three recent Delaware opinions […]
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Posted in Delaware Law Series, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Delaware Court of Chancery, Delaware law, Delaware Supreme Court, M&A
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Activists Find Winning Strategy in Surprise First Half
U.S.-based activists in particular achieved an uptick in success rates amid the turbulence sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and policy shift, with many adopting new tactics and advancing stronger director candidates to achieve their desired objectives. While the volume of seats gained by activists globally saw an 11% decline in the first […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged Activists, CEOs, Corporate governance, Shareholders
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Shareholder Engagement Considerations in Light of Texas v. Blackrock
On Friday, the Court in Texas v. Blackrock issued an opinion largely denying defendants’ motion to dismiss, which allows a coalition of States to proceed with claims that BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard conspired to violate the antitrust laws by pressuring publicly traded coal companies to reduce output in connection with the investment firms’ ESG commitments. The Court found […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged BlackRock, Shareholders, Texas, Texas v. Blackrock
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California Supreme Court Saves Delaware Forum Selection Clauses in Corporate Certificates of Incorporation
On July 21, 2025, the California Supreme Court issued a significant decision clarifying that a forum selection clause in a company’s certificate of incorporation is not unenforceable simply because the selected forum (here, the Delaware Court of Chancery) does not provide the right to a jury trial. In EpicentRx, Inc. v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged California Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Delaware Court of Chancery, stockholders
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Corporate Support for DEI Continues Among Investors and Companies
During this proxy season, companies faced a wave of shareholder resolutions attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and calling for their eradication. This campaign expanded last year’s anti-DEI attacks, tracked in our 2024 paper, Championing Diversity in Corporations, which also provided quotes from numerous companies strongly defending their diversity programs. This year’s anti-DEI resolutions […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications
Tagged Anti-DEI, Corporate governance, dei, Proxy season
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