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Haskell Murray

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Professor Murray teaches business law, business ethics, and alternative dispute resolution courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Currently, his research focuses on corporate governance, mergers & acquisitions, sports law, and social entrepreneurship law issues.

Professor Murray is the 2018-19 President of the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business (“SEALSB”) and is a co-editor of the Business Law Professor Blog. His articles have been published in a variety of journals, including the American Business Law Journal, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Harvard Business Law Review, and the Maryland Law Review. Read More

I have posted an updated draft of my latest piece, “Corporate Social Responsibility & Concession Theory” (forthcoming __ Wm. & Mary Bus. L. Rev. __) on SSRN (here). Here is the abstract:

This Essay examines three related propositions: (1) Voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) fails to effectively advance the agenda of a meaningful segment of CSR proponents; (2) None of the three dominant corporate governance theories – director primacy, shareholder primacy, or team production theory – support mandatory CSR as a normative matter; and, (3) Corporate personality theory, specifically concession theory, can be a meaningful source of leverage in advancing mandatory CSR in the face of opposition from the three primary corporate governance theories. In examining these propositions, this Essay makes the additional claims that Citizens United: (A) supports the proposition that corporate personality theory matters; (B) undermines one of the key supports of the shareholder wealth maximization norm; and (C) highlights the political nature of this debate. Finally, I note that the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision does not undermine my CSR claims, contrary to the suggestions of some commentators.

I expect to have at least one more meaningful round of edits, so all comments…

All of us here at the Business Law Prof Blog join all those inside and outside the legal blogging community who are today mourning the loss of Dan Markel.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the loved ones he left behind. 

From PrawfsBlawg (here):

We Have Lost Our Beloved Friend, Dan Markel

We write this together, all of us, as a community. Our friend Dan Markel has been taken from us, suddenly and terribly. His law school, the Florida State University College of Law, will issue an announcement in due time. We do not have all the details, but our understanding is that Dan was shot and killed. Painful as it is to say that, and as little as we know, the early news reports left enough room for speculation that it seemed necessary to say that much. The terrible, senseless nature of his loss makes it all the harder to bear.

All of us here on Prawfsblawg live in different places and come from different backgrounds. What we have in common, with many others, is Dan. His network of friends and loved ones–and he had a great deal of love for all his many friends…

In last week’s post about the business of the World Cup, I indicated that I would review Christine Bader’s book, The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil. I have changed my mind, largely because I don’t have much to add to the great reviews the book has already received. Instead I would like to talk about how lawyers, professors and students can use the advice, even if they have no desire to do corporate social responsibility work as Bader did, or worse, they think CSR and signing on to voluntary UN initiatives is really a form of “bluewashing.”

Bader earned an MBA and worked around the world on BP’s behalf on human rights initiatives. This role required her to work with indigenous peoples, government officials and her peers within BP convincing them of the merits of considering the human rights, social, and environmental impacts. She then worked with the UN and John Ruggie helping to develop the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a set of guidelines which outline the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate duty to respect human rights, and both the state and corporations’ duty to provide judicial…

The title of this post refers to the thought-provoking book by former BP executive, Christine Bader, The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil. I will save a review for next week in Part 2 of this post. Briefly, Bader discusses the internal and external struggles that she and other “corporate idealists” face when trying to provide practical, culturally appropriate, innovative ways to implement corporate social responsibility and human rights programs around the world. Much of what she said resonated with me based upon my years as a compliance and ethics officer for a multinational corporation and as a current consultant on these issues.

Like comedian/TV commentator John Oliver, I am torn about the World Cup and the significant power that soccer/futbol’s international governing body FIFA has over both Brazil and its residents. His hilarious but educational rant is worth a close watch, and I experienced the conflict he describes firsthand during my two recent trips to Salvador, Brazil. I went to watch what the rest of the world calls “the beautiful game” in a country where soccer is a religion. That’s not an exaggeration by the way– I bought a statuette of a monk holding a…

I always enjoy reading Bryan Cave partner Scott Killingsworth’s comments in various LinkedIn groups. In addition to practicing law, he’s a contributing editor to a treatise on the duties of board members. He’s just published a short but thorough essay on “The Privatization of Compliance.” It reminds me of some of the comments that Dean Colin Scott made at Law and Society about tools of private transnational regulation, which include self-regulation, contracts, consumers, industry initiatives, corporate social responsibility programs and meta-regulators. Killingsworth’s abstract is below.

Corporate Compliance is becoming privatized, and privatization is going viral. Achieving consistent legal compliance in today’s regulatory environment is a challenge severe enough to keep compliance officers awake at night and one at which even well-managed companies regularly fail. But besides coping with governmental oversight and legal enforcement, companies now face a growing array of both substantive and process-oriented compliance obligations imposed by trading partners and other private organizations, sometimes but not always instigated by the government. Embodied in contract clauses and codes of conduct for business partners, these obligations often go beyond mere compliance with law and address the methods by which compliance is assured. They create new compliance obligations and enforcement mechanisms and…

Regular readers of this blog have seen several posts discussing the materiality of various SEC disclosures. See here and here for recent examples. I have been vocal about my objection to the Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rule, which requires US issuers to disclose their use of tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold deriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding nations, and describe the measures taken to conduct audits and due diligence of their supply chains. See this post and this law review article.

Last year SEC Chair Mary Jo White indicated that she has concerns about the amount and types of disclosures that companies put forth and whether or not they truly assist investors in making informed decisions.  In fact, the agency is undergoing a review of corporate disclosures and has recently announced that rather than focusing on disclosure “overload” the agency wants to look at “effectiveness,” duplication, and “holes in the regulatory regime where additional disclosure may be good for investors.”

I’m glad that the SEC is looking at these issues and I urge lawmakers to consider this SEC focus when drafting additional disclosure regulation. One possible test case is the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and…

Greetings from Salvador, Bahia, one of the twelve cities hosting the World Cup. Apologies in advance for any spacing issues. I am typing on an iPad with spotty internet service in Brazil so editing is an issue.
The long plane ride gave me some time to reflect on the Law and Society Conference I attended two weeks ago. It was my second time and once again, it didn’t disappoint. I served as the discussant on a panel on Theorizing the Corporation with Elizabeth Pollman, Charlotte Garden and Sarah Haan. All of the papers talked about a right to speak. The common theme was the question of who is speaking, the basis of that right and whose interests are being served by the speech. I found them particularly interesting given my background. Prior to joining academia I was a deputy GC and our PAC and lobbying activities reported to me.
Elizabeth Pollman presented “The Derivative Nature of Corporate Constitutional Rights”, which she co-authored with Margaret Blair. She started off by providing us with a 200-year history of the corporation which I plan to incorporate in my BA class next fall. Her paper provided a framework for the court to think about…

Last week I posted about proxy advisory firm ISS and its recommendations regarding Wal-Mart and Target.

This week the US Chamber of Commerce weighed in on the two main proxy advisory firms, what the organization sees as their potential conflict of interests and the lack of transparency, and the SEC’s imminent release of guidance on the firms. It’s worth a read and has some great links.

Next week I will be blogging from Salvador, Brazil where I will be enjoying the World Cup. I will post a brief recap of some of the business-related Law and Society sessions I attended in Minneapolis last weekend. With all of the controversy that invariably surrounds a large sporting event in a country that scores high on the corruption perception index, I may even be inspired to write a law review article on the FCPA. 

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has always had a lot of influence – some think too much- and it’s also received quite a bit of press this week. First, the Wall Street Journal reported that the proxy advisory firm slammed Wal-Mart’s board for lack of independence regarding its executive pay practices in particular how compensation is (un)affected by declining company performance. ISS also raised concerns about the company’s ongoing FCPA troubles and how or whether executives will be held accountable. ISS called for more board independence. Given the fact that the Walton family owns 50% of the company stock, it’s not likely that ISS’ recommendations will have much weight, but it’s still noteworthy nonetheless.

This morning, the press reported that ISS took aim at another troubled company, Target. In addition to its revenue declines, Target also reported a massive data breach last year, which led to numerous shareholder derivative suits. ISS recommended that seven of the ten board members lose their seats for failing to adequately monitor the risk. Target has already made a number of significant management changes. This recommendation from ISS may be an even bigger wake up call to board members (including those outside of Target) about…