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Stefan J. Padfield

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Director of the NCPPR's Free Enterprise Project. Prior experience includes 15+ years as a law professor, two federal judicial clerkships, private practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP, and 6 years enlisted active duty (US Army). Immigrant (naturalized).

“Why don’t conservative activists use SEC Rule 14a-8 (the so-called shareholder proposal rule) to put proposals on corporate proxy statements?” and speculates that to the extent conservatives do submit such proposals, they are likely to be excluded as ordinary business matters.

Well, I don’t know if this represents a new trend or anything, but at least one conservative group was recently successful under 14a-8.  The National Center for Public Policy Research submitted a proposal to have Deere & Co provide a yearly report to stockholders on whether its political spending was in line with the company’s stated values.  According to the proposal, Deere & Co has stated that it advocates for a free marketplace, and that it only supports candidates who share its “pro-business” outlook and commitment to “free enterprise,” but at the same time, it has joined the Climate Action Partnership, withdrawn its support for the conservative ALEC, and has donated to politicians who voted for the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank.  The proposal asks that the Board develop a policy for ensuring congruency between the company’s corporate values and its political activity, and report to shareholders on the company’s compliance with that policy.

The…

For many businesses a good online reputation can significantly increase revenue.

Kashmir Hill, who I know from my time in NYC, has done some interesting reporting on businesses buying a good online reputation.

Earlier this week Kashmir posted the results of her undercover investigation into the problem of fake reviews, followers, and friends. When asking questions as a journalist, those selling online reviews insisted they only did real reviews on products they actually tested.

Kashmir then created a make-believe mobile karaoke business, Freakin’ Awesome Karaoke Express (a/k/a F.A.K.E), and found how easy it was to artificially inflate one’s online reputation. She writes:

For $5, I could get 200 Facebook fans, or 6,000 Twitter followers, or I could get @SMExpertsBiz to tweet about the truck to the account’s 26,000 Twitter fans. A Lincoln could get me a Facebook review, a Google review, an Amazon review, or, less easily, a Yelp review.

All of this for a fake business that the reviewers had, obviously, never frequented. Some of the purchased fake reviews were surprisingly specific. In a time when many of us rely on online reviews, at least in part, this was a sobering story. It was somewhat encouraging, however…

Last week I ventured a few blocks from Belmont’s campus to our neighbor Vanderbilt University Law School for their conference on The Future of International Corporate Governance. 

One of the many interesting papers presented was Independent Directors in Singapore: Puzzling Compliance Requiring Explanation by Dan Puchniak and Luh Luh Lan, both of the National University of Singapore.

The entire paper is worth reading, but I want to share three take-aways with our readers.

  1. “[O]nly a handful of jurisdictions [roughly 7%] have ever adopted the American concept of the independent director (i.e., where directors who are independent from management only— but not substantial shareholders—are deemed to be independent).” (pg. 6)

  2. Singapore adopted an American-style definition of “independent director” in 2001, which did not include independence from substantial shareholders. Despite this weaker definition of independence in a jurisdiction with much more concentrated shareholding than the U.S., Singapore enjoyed relative success through “functional substitutes” that limited the private benefits of control. According to the authors, these “functional substitutes” include social relationships in Family Controlled Firms (“FCFs”)” and legally imposed limits on the controlling government shareholder in Government Linked Companies (“GLCs”). 

  3. Despite relative success with the American-style definition of “independent director,” Singapore

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Babson College has posted their Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (“GEM”) Reports for 2014 (one global, one for the U.S.), available here.

The reports are valuable resources and should be read in full, but below are a few, selected quotes from the executive summary of the US GEM Report.

  • “The United States consistently exhibits among the highest entrepreneurship rates in the developed world. At 14% of the U.S. working age population, entrepreneurship levels edged upward in 2014 to reach the highest level in the 16 years GEM has assessed this activity. This represents approximately 24 million Americans starting or running new businesses. An additional 14 million people were estimated to be running established businesses.”
  • “36% of U.S. entrepreneurs operate in the business service sector, which is generally associated with knowledge and service-based businesses.”
  • “15% of entrepreneurs state that 25% or more of their customers come from outside the United States. This shows an increase over 11% reported in 2013, but it is still lower than 21% reported, on average, in the other innovation-driven economies.”
  • “29% of Americans personally know an entrepreneur; this measure has generally followed a downward path since 2001, when 43% indicated this affiliation.”
  • “Women’s entrepreneurship in the United

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Back in January, I joined Planet Fitness. The $10/month membership seemed too good to be true. Most gyms I had joined in the past had cost 3-5X that amount, and the equipment looked pretty similar. Also, the advertisement of No Commitment* Join Now & Save! (small font – *Commitments may vary per location) gave me pause.

Like a good lawyer, I read all the fine print in the membership contract, looking for a catch. There wasn’t really a catch – except for a small, one-time annual fee (~$30), if I did not cancel before October.

I signed up, enjoyed the gym, and canceled a few months later, as soon as the weather outside improved. (When I exercise, which is not as consistently as some of my co-bloggers, it is mostly just running, and I prefer to run outside if the weather is decent).

So, in total, I paid around $30 for three months of access to a single location of a decent gym.

This deal is still somewhat puzzling to me. If Planet Fitness’ business model makes sense, why aren’t more competitors coming close to the $10/month price point?

Here are some of my guesses (based on my brief experience…