Fellow BLPB editor, Stefan Padfield, raised some insightful questions on the continued reach and impact of defacto corporation doctrines and corporation by estoppel in an earlier, offline conversation. [Stefan uses my Business Organizations casebook offered on the electronic platform ChartaCourse and was graciously providing me some feedback]. The conversation raised two related groups of questions. First what is the continued import and application of defacto corporation doctrine in a world of standardized incorporation processes. Long gone are the days of lost mail (lost Email maybe) and corrections can be made nearly instanteously and will relatively little cost in the event of typos or other defects. To what extent does the de facto doctrine, long a staple of the survey law school course on corporations, still play a relevant role in practice. I understand all of the doctrinal reasons law professors may want to continue to teach it because it tests the outer limits of the substance over form debate in corporations and the begs the questions how fragile or strong is the legal fiction of separately incorporated entities. It is nearly as fun as piercing the corporate veil! But in [insert finger quotes here] “real life” or “practice” how relevant is
Super Tuesday, Super PACs & Super Spending
It’s super Tuesday and in the spirit of this big primary day, let’s look at corporate spending in the election.
First, let’s talk about someone who isn’t in the race anymore, Jeb Bush. Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, law professor at Stetson University College of Law, and Brennan Center Fellow, wrote piece highlighting the role of corporate money in Jeb Bush’s Super Pac. Corporate money was big business for Jeb. Torres-Spelliscy discusses a $10 million donation from CV Starr with former AIG CEO Maruice Raymond “Hank” Greenberg at the helm, several private company donations over $1M and a multi-million dollar donation from publicly traded, NextEra Energy Inc (NYSE ticker: NEE). Torres-Spelliscy writes “If anyone ever tries to sell you the bill of goods that corporations are not taking advantage of their Citizens United rights to spend in American politics, remember this: the top donor to Jeb! Bush’s Super PAC was a corporation.” Read her full account here.
The failure of Jeb Bush’s well-moneyed campaign has generated debate about the “real impact” of money in politics if it can’t produce a certain result. Rick Hasen, election law professor at University of California Irvine and prolific writer behind the Election Law Blog
2016 Proxy Season Corporate Governance Watch List & Additional Resources
Having just taught a corporate governance seminar class on the proxy process (from a company’s perspective), proxy advisory services, and institutional voting, I have the upcoming proxy season on my mind. There are a great collection of resources available for those interested for academic or practice-related reasons. My students found many of these summaries to be a good distillation of the issues and introduction to the nuts and bolts of proxy access. I have provided my list of resources below, in addition to a quick summary of the major governance issues likely to be on the table in 2016.
Major Governance Issues:
- Dodd Frank pay ratio disclosure
- Say on Pay majority voting
- Executive compensation disclosures subject to new SEC interpretations
- Proxy Access Bylaws (see New York campaign)
- Cybersecurity
- Audit Committee Disclosures
- Independent Chair proposals
2016 Proxy Season Resources:
Flipping Over the Flipped Classroom
Today I tried an experiment in flipping the classroom. Instead of lecturing in class, I sent my Civil Procedure students a number of videos to watch in advance so that we could work through complex problems during class. I admit that I did this because I dread teaching supplemental jurisdiction, but I was surprised by the positive feedback that I received from the students. This is a topic that confuses students every year and although we are not finished with the unit, it does seem less painful this time around. I did not use my own videos, but I will be developing some soon for both Civil Procedure and for the next time I teach Business Associations.
I use a modified version of the flipped classroom already for Business Associations when I send the students YouTube clips to help them increase their understanding on complex issues but it doesn’t come close to having the whole lecture on video so that we can focus on drafting or working through hypos. In my Transnational Business and Human Rights Class I also use videos and extensive at home readings and limited lecture so that we can do simulations, but again, that is
Justice Scalia’s Final Mark on Corporate Law May Be One of Form over Substance
Justice Scalia’s sudden passing has generated a tidal wave of media and academic attention on the future of the Supreme Court. As a corporate law scholar, I have to admit to a tinge of jealousy to be seemingly outside of this controversy, the hand wringing, and the political equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons that has ensued as people examine the various maneuverers available to our elected politicians and those vying-to be elected.
My solution? I searched for pending corporate cases hanging in the balance of the new, and indeterminate, vacancy on the Supreme Court. I wanted to know if there were any cases pending that would likely be decided differently in a post-Scalia court, or at least hang in a 4-4 split and thus uphold the lower court ruling. There isn’t a big juicy corporate law case pending, or at least one that I readily identified.
Not to be deterred, however, there is a case worth highlighting. Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., was argued on January 19th before the Supreme Court (transcript available here). The issue before the Supreme Court in Americold was how to establish the citizenship of a real estate trust for purposes
Call for Papers- Journal of Ethics & Entrepreneurship
| Call for Papers Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring 2017) Special Issue – The Ethics of Social Entrepreneurship |
Donald W. Caudill, Executive Editor (Godbold School of Business, Gardner-Webb University), invites authors to submitpapers for a special issue of the Journal of Ethics & Entrepreneurship on The Ethics of Social Entrepreneurship (Vol. 7 No. 1, Spring 2017).
Mission of the Journal of Ethics and Entrepreneurship
The mission of the JEE is to publish (double-blind, peer reviewed) interdisciplinary scholarly research (conceptual, theoretical, empirical) or teaching cases that connect entrepreneurship and ethics and appeal to both the academic and the practitioner.
Special Issue Call for Papers
This Special Issue is being offered in conjunction with the Special Interest Group in Social Entrepreneurship of the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and the issue will be celebrated at the January 2017 USASBE Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.
Social entrepreneurship has become a dynamic force in positively addressing market and institutional social and economic failures as well as providing beneficial solutions for those living on the margins of society. At the heart of this growing field are the promotion of the social good and the rectifying of
New Scholarship on Hedge Fund Activism Urges Courts to Adopt Enhanced Scrutiny of Boards’ Defensive Actions
Bernard Sharfman, in his new article on SSRN, The Tension Between hedge Fund Activism and Corporate Law, argues that hedge fund activism for control of a publicly traded corporation is a positive corrective measure in corporate governance. After asserting that hedge fund activism should be permitted, Sharfman, argues, controversially, that courts should depart from traditional deference to a corporate board’s decision making authority under the business judgment rule. Alternatively, Sharfman urges courts to adopt a heightened standard of scrutiny when reviewing defensive board actions against hedge funds.
[Hedge Fund Activism] has a role to play as a corrective mechanism in corporate governance and it is up to the courts to find a way to make sure it continues to have a significant impact despite the courts’ inclination to yield to Board authority. In practice, this means that when the plaintiff is an activist hedge fund and the standard of review is the Unocal test because issues of control are present, a less permissive approach needs to be applied, requiring the courts to exercise restraint in interpreting the actions of activist hedge funds as an attempt to gain control.
If there are no issues of control, then Board independence and reasonable investigation still needs to be the focus. That is, before the business
The thorny relationship between business and human rights
For the past four weeks I have been experimenting with a new class called Transnational Business and Human Rights. My students include law students, graduate students, journalists, and accountants. Only half have taken a business class and the other half have never taken a human rights class. This is a challenge, albeit, a fun one. During our first week, we discussed CSR, starting off with Milton Friedman. We then used a business school case study from Copenhagen and the students acted as the public relations executive for a Danish company that learned that its medical product was being used in the death penalty cocktail in the United States. This required students to consider the company’s corporate responsibility profile and commitments and provide advice to the CEO based on a number of factors that many hadn’t considered- the role of investors, consumer reactions, the pressure from NGOs, and the potential effect on the stock price for the Danish company based on its decisions. During the first three weeks the students have focused on the corporate perspective learning the language of the supply chain and enterprise risk management world.
This week they are playing the role of the state and critiquing and
BlackRock’s Fink Wants CEO Strategic Plans to Stem “Quarterly-Earnings Hysteria”
Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the U.S., wrote a letter to the CEO’s of S&P 500 Companies urging reforms aimed at fostering long-term valuation creation and curbing a myopic focus on near-term profits. Fink has long been a public advocate of long-term valuation creation for the health of American companies and the wealth of society (for an example see this April 2015 letter on the “gambling nature” of the economy”). His message has been consistent: long term, long term, long term.
Citing to increased dividends and buyback programs as evidence of corrosive short-termism, Fink laid out a modest play for action. He asks every CEO to publish an annual strategic plan signed off on by the board. The CEO strategic plan should communicate the vision for the company and how such long-term growth can be achieved.
[P]erspective on the future, however, is what investors and all stakeholders truly need, including, for example, how the company is navigating the competitive landscape, how it is innovating, how it is adapting to technological disruption or geopolitical events, where it is investing and how it is developing its talent. As part of this effort, companies should work to develop financial metrics, suitable for
Dow DuPont Merger of “Equals” Raises Several Equality Questions
In December, 2015, Dow Chemicals Co. and DuPont announced a proposed merger between their two companies. Under the proposed deal, and with the approval of stockholders and regulators, the two agro/chemical giants will merger their companies in 2016 to create DowDuPont, with an estimated $130 billion value. Within 18-24 months of closing, DowDuPont will be split into three independent, publicly traded companies .
The proposed “merger of equals” is structured to share power equally between Dow and DuPont and its leadership in the new company. Dow and DuPont stockholders will each own roughly half of DowDuPont. There will be 16 members on the new DowDuPont board of directors: 8 from each company. The roles of Chairman and CEO will be split with Andrew Liveris (Dow) serving as Chairman and Edward Breen (DuPont) as CEO.
Questions of equality and perceived power imbalance arise when we examine the relationships between (1) corporate boards and activist investors; (2) various shareholders (hedge funds vs. institutional investors vs. retail investors, etc.), and (3) possibly, CEO’s.
Let’s tackle the first (and tangentially the second) imbalance by talking about hedge funds. Last year, Trian hedge fund targeted DuPont in a very expensive, public and close proxy