Corporate Governance

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On Wednesday, the EU finally outlined its position on conflict minerals. The proposed rule will affect approximately 900,000 businesses. As I have discussed here, these “name and shame” disclosure rules are premised on the theories that: 1) companies have duty to respect human rights by conducting due diligence in their supply chains; 2) companies that source minerals from conflict zones contribute financially to rebels or others that perpetuate human rights abuses; and 3) if consumers and other stakeholders know that companies source certain minerals from conflict zones they will change their buying habits or pressure companies to source elsewhere.

As stated in earlier blog posts, the US Dodd- Frank rule has been entangled in court battles for years and the legal wranglings are not over yet. Dodd-Frank Form SD filings were due on May 31st and it is too soon to tell whether there has been improvement over last year’s disclosures in which many companies indicated that the due diligence process posed significant difficulties.

I am skeptical about most human rights disclosure rules in general because they are a misguided effort to solve the root problem of business’ complicity with human rights abuses and assume that consumers care…

Three Business Law Prof Blog editors (myself included) are presenting at the upcoming Berle Symposium on June 27-28 in Seattle.

Colin Mayer (Oxford) is the keynote speaker, and I look forward to hearing him present again. I blogged on his book Firm Commitment after I heard him speak at Vanderbilt a few of years ago. The presenters also include former Chancellor Bill Chandler of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Given that Chancellor Chandler’s eBay v. Newmark decision is heavily cited in the benefit corporation debates, it will be quite valuable to have him among the contributors. The author of the Model Benefit Corporation Legislation, Bill Clark, will also be presenting; I have been at a number of conferences with Bill Clark and always appreciate his thoughts from the front lines. Finally, the list is packed with professors I know and admire, or have read their work and am looking forward to meeting. 

More information about the conference is available here.

The New York Times ran the article How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions last weekend. It’s an interesting piece that provides a look at Donald Trump’s east coast casino experience.  The article is, as one might expect, critical of his dealings and notes that Trump made money even when his ventures when bankrupt.  

Though I will not defend any of Trump’s dealings, there are few issues raised that I think are worthy of a some discussion and clarification.1  The post that follows suggests how to consider Trump’s business history and place that history in a political context.

If you’ve been slamming away on a writing deadline then perhaps you’ve missed the opportunity (like me) to dive into the recent Chancery Court of Delaware Dell appraisal rights opinion (downloadable here).  Have no fear, your summary is here.

Vice Chancellor Laster valued Dell’s common stock at $17.62 per share, reflecting a 28% premium above the $13.75 merger price that was paid to Dell shareholders in October 2014 in a going private transaction lead by company-founder Michael Dell. Dell’s going private transaction was opposed by Carl Icahn and this juicy, contentious transaction has its own required reading list.  When conceding defeat, Carl Icahn sent the following letter to Dell Shareholders:

New York, New York, September 9, 2013 

Dear Fellow Dell Inc. Stockholders:

I continue to believe that the price being paid by Michael Dell/Silver Lake to purchase our company greatly undervalues it, among other things, because:

1. Dell is paying a price approximately 70% below its ten-year high of $42.38; and

2. The bid freezes stockholders out of any possibility of realizing Dell’s great potential.

Fast forward nearly 3 years later and it seems Vice Chancellor Laster agrees.  VC Laster reached his undervaluation decision despite no finding of significant…

This year, my research and writing season has started off with a bang.  While grading papers and exams earlier this month, I finished writing one symposium piece and first-round-edited another.  Today, I will put the final touches on PowerPoint slides for a presentation I give the second week in June (submission is required today for those) and start working on slides for the presentation I will give Friday.

All of this sets into motion a summer concert conference, Barbri, and symposium tour that (somewhere along the line) got a bit complicated.  Here are the cities and dates:

New Orleans, LA – June 2-5
Atlanta, GA – June 10-11
Nashville, TN – June 17
Chicago, IL – June 23-24
Seattle, WA – June 27

I know some of my co-bloggers are joining me along the way.  I look forward to seeing them.  Each week, I will keep you posted on current events as best I can while managing the research and writing and presentation preparations.  The topics of my summer research and teaching run the gamut from insider trading (through by-law drafting, agency, unincorporated business associations, personal property, and benefit corporations) to crowdfunding.  A nice round lot.

This coming week, I will be at the Law and Society Association annual conference.  My presentation at this conference relates to an early-stage project on U.S. insider trading cases.  The title and abstract for the project and the currently envisioned initial paper (which I would, of course, already change in a number of ways) are as follows:

A former law student of mine who practices in Delaware just alerted me to this Delaware Online article. 

The article describes the proposed bill as follows:

House Bill 371 would restrict the number of corporate shareholders who can petition the court for a stock appraisal to only those who own $1 million or more of a company’s stock or 1 percent of the outstanding shares, depending on which is less. Currently, any shareholder can ask the court to appraise their shares. Those motions are typically filed when a company is the target of an all-cash acquisition and the shareholder wants to ensure the buyer is paying a fair price for the stock. (emphasis added)

Corporate governance expert Charles Elson is quoted as saying:

. . . he understands the argument on both sides. “Anytime you attempt to restrict the rights of a smaller shareholder, it is going to be controversial whether or not the approach is warranted”

The article cites co-authored work by my Nashville neighbor, Randall Thomas (Vanderbilt Law):

A study published earlier this month by four noted corporate law professors, including Wei Jang of Columbia Business School and Randall S. Thomas of Vanderbilt Law School, found that hedge funds have

…

Yesterday, I presented on negotiation theory and stakeholder engagement at the Center for Nonprofit Management’s Bridge to Excellence Conference.

At a session after mine, I was directed to a PowerPoint entitled What Every Board Member Should Know: A Guide for Tennessee Nonprofits. The PowerPoint was authored by the Tennessee Attorney General, the Tennessee Secretary of State, and the President of the Center for Nonprofit Management. The document is rather simple, but might be useful as a primer for nonprofit board members in Tennessee.  

The conference attendees appeared to be a few hundred nonprofit practitioners and only about three or four professors, two of whom were among the presenters. After my morning presentation, I stuck around and listened to some of the other speakers and enjoyed an excellent lunch. I am a sucker for free food. 

At the conference, I was struck by how nonprofit board members were discussed by some of the speakers and attendees. One question that was posed was – “how do you deal with a board member who is not pulling his or her weight as a fundraiser?” I guess I knew that nonprofit board members were chosen, at least in part, for their ability…

This is just to give everyone a “heads up” on a symposium being held this fall (Friday, October 21 and Saturday, October 22) to honor Lyman Johnson and David Millon.  The symposium is being sponsored by the Washington & Lee Law Review (which will publish the papers presented), and I am thrilled to be among the invited speakers.  I will have more news on the symposium and my paper for it as the date draws nearer.  But I wanted everyone to know about this event so that folks could plan accordingly if they want to attend.  I understand Lexington, Virginia is lovely in late October . . . .  Actually, it’s always been lovely when I have been up there! And the honorees and contributors are a stellar group (present company notwithstanding).  I hope to see some of you there.

Thought Josephine Sandler Nelson’s recent Oxford Business Law Blog post on Volkswagen might be of interest to our readers. It is reposted here with permission.

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Fumigating the Criminal Bug: The Insulation of Volkswagen’s Middle Management

New headlines each day reveal wide-spread misconduct and large-scale cheating at top international companies: Volkswagen’s emissions-defeat devices installed on over eleven million cars trace back to a manager’s PowerPoint from as early as 2006. Mitsubishi admits that it has been cheating on emissions standards for the eK and Dayz model cars for the past 25 years—even after a similar scandal almost wiped out the company 15 years ago. Takata’s $70 million fine for covering up its exploding air bags in Honda, Ford, and other car brands could soon jump to $200 million if a current Department of Justice probe discovers additional infractions. The government has ordered Takata’s recall of the air bags to more than double: one out of every five cars on American roads may be affected. Now Daimler is conducting an internal investigation into potential irregularities in its exhaust compliance.

A recent case study of the 2015-16 Volkswagen (‘VW’) scandal pioneers a new way to look at these scandals…

In follow up to my post yesterday, my trusted and valued co-blogger Joan Heminway asked a good question (as usual) based one of my comments.  My response became long enough that I thought it warranted a follow-up post (and it needed formatting).  Joan commented: 

you say: “there should be no problem if, for example, Delaware corporate law did not allow a for-profit entity to exercise religion for the sole sake of religion. I think that is the case right now: that’s not a proper corporate purpose under my read of existing law.” Are you implying that a corporate purpose of that kind for a for-profit corporation organized in Delaware would be unlawful? Can you explain?

My response: I am suggesting exactly that, though I concede one might need a complaining shareholder first. My read of eBay, and Chief Justice Strine’s musing on the subject, suggest that an entity that is run for purposes of religion (not shareholder wealth maximization) first and foremost, is an improper use of the Delaware corporate form. (“I simply indicate that the corporate law requires directors, as a matter of their duty of loyalty, to pursue a good faith strategy to maximize profits for…