Corporations

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On June 5, 2014, SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher commemorated the agency’s 80th anniversary by, among other things, repeating the criticisms of the various nonfinancial disclosures that companies are compelled to make by law or asked to make through shareholder proposals. In his view, “companies’ disclosure documents are being cluttered with non-material information that can drown out or obscure the information that is at the core of a reasonable investor’s investment decision.  The Commission is not spending nearly enough time making sure that our rules elicit focused, meaningful disclosures of material information.” I assume that he is referring to the various environmental, social and governance proposals (“ESG”) brought by socially responsible investors and others. I’m writing this blog post while taking a break from reviewing dozens of these proposals for an article that I am writing on how consumers and investors evaluate ESG disclosures and those required in other countries in the human rights context.

Citing Chair White’s quote about “information overload,” last week the US Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness released a list of relatively non-controversial recommendations on how the SEC can modernize the current disclosure regime so that it can better serve the investing public.

Last week on this blog, I wrote about the revived trend of corporate inversions where, through a merger transaction a US company re-domiciles outside of the US for business reasons, including the desire to avoid paying US corporate taxes.  Walgreens was rumored to be negotiating with Alliance Boots, a UK company in which the US drugstore chain already held 45%.  The merger announcement today, in a deal valued at $5.27 billion for the other 55% of Alliance Boots will keep the merged company’s headquarters in Chicago.   Citing, in part to public reaction and the drug store’s brand here in the US, “The company concluded it was not in the best long-term interest of our shareholders to attempt to re-domicile outside the U.S.”

The full article in the DealBook is available here.

-Anne Tucker

Warning- do not click on the first link if you do not want to see nudity.

Dov Charney founded retailer American Apparel in 1998 and it became an instant sensation with its 20-something year old consumer base. He mixed a “made in America- sweatshop free” CSR focus with a very sexy/sexual set of ads (hence the warning- – when I first created the link, the slideshow went from a topless “Eugenia in disco pants in menthe” (seriously) to a shot of adorable children’s clothing in about 10 seconds).  No wonder my 18-year old son, who leaves for art school in two weeks, appreciates the ad campaigns. Most of his friends do too- both the males and females. In fact, he indicated that although they all know about the “sweatshop free” ethos, because “it’s in your face when you walk in the stores,” that’s not what draws them to the clothes. As a person who blogs and writes about human rights and supply chains, I almost wish he had lied to me. But he’s no different than many consumers who over-report their interest in ethical sourcing, but then tend to buy based on quality, price and convenience. I am still researching…

There is a new face on an old problem — American companies “moving” overseas in part to avoid U.S. taxes — that has increased in popularity in the last several years and recently gained political attention. Last week President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew called for tax reform to encourage economic patriotism and to deter corporate defectors, calling the overseas moves legal, but immoral.

Two structural features of the U.S. tax code incentivize corporations to move abroad. The U.S. corporate tax rate, at 35 percent, is high compared to the average Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) rate of 25 percent, and the average European Union rate of 21 percent. Many corporations effectively pay much less than 35 percent, after factoring in loopholes and deductions, policies that cost approximately $150 billion in untaxed revenue last year. But the reported tax rate is high compared to other jurisdictions and the complexity required to reduce that rate in practice also is a deterrent.

Second, other countries like the United Kingdom become attractive foreign tax locations because they operate under a territorial system that does not tax profits earned outside of the home country. Under the U.S. system, however, returning…

As many readers (and all of my friends) know, I am a bit of a sports fan.  Having been a college athlete (field hockey, at Brown University, for trivia buffs), I focus most of my attention on college games.  I even served on The University of Tennessee’s Athletics Board for a few years.  But my Dad and I used to watch professional football and baseball a lot together when I was a kid (still do, when we are in the same place at the right time), so I also maintain a casual interest in professional sports.

I also have an interest in fashion, especially women’s fashion (maybe less well known, except by close friends).  I have friends in the industry and find aspects of it truly fascinating.  I even used to subscribe to Women’s Wear Daily, the fashion industry trade rag.  I am the faculty advisor to the College of Law’s Fashion and Business (FAB) Law student organization.

This personal background is prelude to my interest in two current events stories that I see as parallels.  I am trying to sort them through on a number of levels. Maybe you can help.  Here are the top lines of each story.

  • Last Thursday, the National Football League (NFL) suspended Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for two games, fined him $58,000 dollars, and asked him to seek counseling after its investigation of an incident relating to a video in which Rice was depicted dragging his then-fiance, now wife, by her hair after punching her in the face (allegedly rendering her unconscious).
  • The very same day, American Apparel (AA) announced a new slate of directors who will assume positions on the AA board in early August as a result of investor intervention and a boardroom blood bath following on lagging profits and continuing investigations of allegations of sexual misconduct (most of it, as I understand it, not new news) against AA’s founder and former CEO and director, Dov Charney, whose management roles at the firm were suspended by the board back in June.

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…

As many have celebrated or decried, Dodd-Frank turned four-years old this week. This is the law that Professor Stephen Bainbridge labeled “quack federal corporate governance round II” (round I was Sarbanes-Oxley, as labeled by Professor Roberta Romano). Some, like Professor Bainbridge, think the law has gone too far and has not only failed to meet its objectives but has actually caused more harm than good (see here, for example).  Some think that the law has not gone far enough, or that the law as drafted will not prevent the next financial crisis (see here, for example). The Council on Foreign Relations discusses the law in an accessible manner with some good links here.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White has divided Dodd-Frank’s ninety-five mandates into eight categories. She released a statement last week touting the Volcker Rule, the new regulatory framework for municipal advisors, additional controls on broker-dealers that hold customer assets, reduced reliance on credit ratings, new rules for unregulated derivatives, additional executive compensation disclosures, and mechanisms to bar bad actors from securities offerings. 

Notwithstanding all of these accomplishments, only a little over half of the law is actually in place. In fact, according to the…

Steven Davidoff Solomon, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, has an interesting article on antitrust in the DealBook today:  Changing Old Antitrust Thinking for a New Gilded Age. Professor Solomon argues that a new wave of mergers in the tech and telecommunications industries mirror the consolidation wave of the Gilded Age a century ago which lead to our current antitrust laws.  These mergers leave competition in tact, albeit among a few huge companies, and therefore facially meet the competition requirements under antitrust law.  He argues that “[t]his calculus, however, excludes the political and other power that a concentrated industry can wield with government and regulators.”  Citing to industry-based nonprofits and the ability to participate in political spending in a post-Citizens United world, professor Solomon concludes that antitrust may become a question of power, not just competition. 

“[R]ight now there is simply no real government ability to review the industry consolidation that is occurring today in which industries become dominated by a handful of major players. Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that size and industry concentration affect American society even if competition still exists.”

I think that this is an interesting lens through which…

Amazon BBB Book Cover
You may think of Warren Buffett as a savvy stock picker but his greater accomplishment is in configuring an exceptionally strong corporation that defies widespread conceptions of effective corproate governance.  

Since early in his career, Buffett adopted what he calls the double-barreled approach to capital allocation, meaning both stock picking and business buying. He gained prominence primarily as an investor in stocks, championing a contrarian investment philosophy.

Attracting three generations of devoted followers to a school of thought called “value investing,” he doubted the market’s efficiency and deftly exploited it. Buffett bought stocks of good companies at a fair price, assembling a concentrated portfolio of large stakes in a small number of firms. Today, nearly three-fourths of Berkshire’s stock portfolio consists of just seven stocks.     

But late in his career, beginning around 2000, Buffett shot more often through the other half of his double-barreled approach: buying 100 percent of companies run by trusted managers given great autonomy. True, Berkshire early on bought all the stock of companies such as Buffalo News and See’s Candies. But, through the 1990s, the first barrel dominated, with Berkshire consisting 80 percent of stocks and 20 percent owned companies. That mix gradually reversed and recently flipped, making subsidiary ownership the defining characteristic of today’s Berkshire.

Owning primarily subsidiaries rather than merely stocks gives Berkshire a different shape compared to its previous character as the holding company of a famed investor. After all, even for a buy-and-hold investor, stocks come and go. Berkshire has sold the stocks of many once-fine companies, including Freddie Mac, McDonald’s, and The Walt Disney Company.

In contrast, aside from a few Berkshire subsidiaries that it acquired from the Buffett Partnership in the 1970s, Berkshire has never sold a subsidiary and vows to retain them through thick and thin.  Despite their variety, moreover, Berkshire companies are remarkably similar when it comes to corporate culture, which is the central discovery I document and elaborate in my upcoming book, Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values.

When Berkshire consisted mostly of the stock portfolio of a famed stock picker, you could expect that, once that investor departed, the portfolio would naturally be unwound and the company dissolved. Now, however, with Berkshire made of companies not stocks, its life expectancy stretches out in multiple decades, not mere years. It certainly goes beyond the stock picker who founded it.  That’s not an accident either, as the dominant cultural motif at Berkshire and its subsidiaries is a sense of permanence–the longest possible time horizon imaginable.   

Cross-post alert!

At the risk of overdoing what may have been a good thing, I contributed a disclosure-oriented post to the Hobby Lobby symposium on The Conglomerate earlier today.  It includes new information about a U.S. Department of Labor Q&A posted yesterday, among other things.  Enjoy or not, as you so please . . . .