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Every year, I offer my students the option of writing an extra credit paper on what Hollywood gets wrong about business. They can also apply what they’ve learned to a popular movie, television show, or book (the Godfather, Game of Thrones, and Sex and the City have provided some of the more interesting analogies). Often I provide a list of TV shows or movies that they can consider. Today, I’m asking my co-bloggers and our readers for their binge-worthy movie or TV choices. Some movie lists for business students are here, here, here, and here but I welcome your suggestions. For those of you who aren’t in my class and just want a break from the news, these lists may come in handy.

Businesses from small farmers to cruise lines are anxiously awaiting President Trump’s policy on Cuba and how/if he will rescind President Obama’s Executive Orders relaxing restrictions on doing business with the island.

If you’re in the South Florida area next Friday March 10th, please consider attending the timely conference on Doing Business in Cuba: Legal, Ethical, and Compliance Challenges from 8:00 am-4:30 pm at the Andreas School of Business, Barry University. The Florida Bar has granted 6.5 CLE credits, including for ethics and for certifications in Business Litigation and International Law. The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust is organizing the event.

As a member of the Commission and an academic who has just completed my third article on Cuba, I’m excited to provide the opening address for the event. I’m even more excited about our speakers John Kavulich, President, U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc;  the general counsel of Carnival Cruise Lines;  mayors of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and Doral; director of the Miami International Airport; a number of academic experts from local universities; Commissioners Nelson Bellido and Judge Lawrence Schwartz; and outside counsel  from MDO Partners, Akerman LLP, Holland & Knight, Greenberg Traurig, Squire Patton Boggs…

I don’t know if it’s the time of year or if I am just a little off, but I am generally grumpy today. So, I am going to vent a bit.  

First, a regular irritation that is no shock to regular readers is the “limited liability corporation.” I probably should have stopped the Westlaw alert for that terms, which comes through nearly every single day with multiple cases and news items.  A new case from the U.S. District Court in Kansas, Pipeline Prods., Inc. v. Horsepower Entm’t, No. CV 15-4890-KHV, 2017 WL 698504, at *1 (D. Kan. Feb. 22, 2017), is typical.  The court states: 

Pipeline Productions, Inc. is a Kansas corporation with its principal place of business in Lawrence, Kansas. Backwood Enterprises, LLC is an Arkansas limited liability corporation with its principal place of business in Lawrence, Kansas. . . . 
The Madison Companies, LLC is a Delaware limited liability company with its principal place of business in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Horsepower Entertainment, a Delaware limited liability company, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Madison with its principal place of business in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Irritation 1: Arkansas does not have an entity called a “limited liability…

A few weeks ago I blogged about the spate of boycotts and buycotts responding to President Trump’s travel ban. Since that time, the #grabyourwallet campaign has taken credit for a number of stores dropping Ivanka Trump’s merchandise. In response, celebrities and others flocked to Nordstrom after criticism by the President’s surrogates about the retailer’s decision to drop the products, even though Nordstrom cited falling sales. Within days, news outlets reported that her perfume was a top seller on Amazon, and that many reviewers indicated that they had bought the product to show support for the President. 

Yesterday, NPR reported that the United Auto Workers will revive its 1980s Buy American campaign, which will not only promote American-made products but will also encourage the boycott of cars made by American companies overseas. I’ve argued in the past that boycotts don’t work, and the NPR story provided some support from a professor who noted, “these campaigns, even with catchy song lyrics, almost never work. For instance, garment work essentially left the U.S. almost completely a few years after [the look for the union label ad] ran, and after the last UAW campaign, the American car companies continued to lose market share.” The…

Here is a rundown of recent business news headlines:

The Yahoo/Verizon deal takes a $350M haircut to compensate for Yahoo data security breaches in 2013 and 2014.

The Snapchat parent company, SNAP, scheduled blockbuster IPO ($20-23B) is plagued with news that it lost  $514.6 million in 2016, there are questions about the sustainability of its user base, and, for the governance folks out there, there is NO VOTING STOCK being offered.

In what is being called a “whopper” of a deal, Restaurant Brands, the owner of Burger King and Tim Hortons, announced earlier this week a deal to acquire Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, the fried chicken restaurant chain, for $1.8 billion in cash. 

Kraft withdrew its $143B takeover offer for Unilever less than 48 hours after the announcement amid political concerns over the merger.  While Unilever evaluates its next steps, Kraft is perhaps feeling the effects of its controversial takeover of Britain’s beloved Cadbury. 

A final item to note, for me personally, is that today is my last regular contribution to the Business Law Professor Blog. I will remain as a contributing editor, but will miss the ritual of a weekly post–a habit now nearly…

Two weeks ago, I posted on the POTUS’s “one in, two out” executive order on executive branch agency regulations.  In that post, I used critiques of a clothing maintenance/closet cleaning system working off the same principle.  Interestingly, a CATO report was released January 31, unbeknownst to me at the time I wrote and published my post, that makes some of the same points.  Since that time, I have wondered whether there is a more wise, effective  way to simply address bloated federal agency regulations.  Here is an idea that currently holds my interest.

In a leadership training program a few years ago, I remember hearing about a technique used in institutional budgeting processes.  A unit leader who is required to submit a proposed budget to a superior or to a central budgeting office is asked to submit with the budget a proposal on what the unit would cut if the budget was cut by 5% (or another desired number) and what the unit would spend on if its budget was increased by 5% (or another desired number).  It struck me that a similar system could be employed to true up federal agency regulations.

Specifically, each agency could be required to establish reasonable, evidence-based objectives for its operations for the forthcoming fiscal year, consistent…

Last week Runner’s World reported:

Mariya Savinova-Farnosova, a Russian middle distance runner, was given a four-year ban for doping by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Friday. She will also be stripped of two gold medals she won at the 2011 world outdoor championships and 2012 London Olympics, as well as a 2013 world silver medal, all in the 800 meters.

As a result, U.S. athlete Brenda Martinez will likely soon be upgraded to a silver medal for her performance in the 800 meters at the 2013 world championships and American Alysia Montaño will receive bronze medals for her races at the 2011 and 2013 world championships. Officials will first need to verify the new results.

In this post, I’ll examine how the presumably clean athletes—like Brenda Martinez and Alysia Montaño in this case—should be treated with regards to their endorsement contracts. The main question is:

  • Should the clean athletes be awarded their endorsement contract performance bonuses based on world rankings than have been revised to exclude doping athletes?

Respected law firm Reed Smith has some helpful contract interpretation materials available here, which is relevant to the discussion. All of the following is merely an academic exercise and…

     This post does not concern President Trump’s own business empire. Rather, this post will be the first of a few to look at how the President retains, repeals, or replaces some of the work that President Obama put in place in December 2016 as part of the National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct. Many EU nations established their NAPS year ago, but the U.S. government engaged in two years of stakeholder consultations and coordinated with several federal agencies before releasing its NAP.

     Secretary of State Tillerson will play a large role in enforcing or revising many of the provisions of the NAP because the State Department promotes the Plan on its page addressing corporate social responsibility. Unlike many federal government pages, this page has not changed (yet) with the new administration. As the State Department explained in December, “the NAP reflects the government’s commitment to promoting human rights and fighting corruption through partnerships with domestic and international stakeholders. An important part of this commitment includes encouraging companies to embrace high standards for responsible business conduct.” Over a dozen federal agencies worked to develop the NAP.

     We now have a new Treasury Secretary and will soon have a…

I hope this Valentine’s Day is a good one for you, dear readers.  Mine started with a random (minor) dog bite on my morning run, followed by some time with some very nice health care professionals and quite a few less pleasant needles. 

A friend alerted me to the law-related Twitter hashtag #AppellateValentines. Some of them are quite funny.  See, e.g.,

There is also a #BusinessValentines hashtag, which is less creative, but has its moments.  Of course, there was no #BusinessLawValentines, but there should be and there is now. I went first. Join in, if you’re so inclined.  

And, of course, I could not resist:

Laureate Education recently became the first standalone publicly traded benefit corporation. They are organized under Delaware’s public benefit corporation (PBC) law, are also a certified B corporation, and will be trading as LAUR on NASDAQ.  

Plum Organics, also a Delaware PBC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of publicly-traded Campbell Soup Company. And Etsy is a publicly traded certified-B corporation, but is organized under traditional Delaware corporation law.

Whether the for-profit educator Laureate will hurt or help the popularity of benefit corporations remains to be seen, but some for-profit educators have not been getting good press lately.

Inside Higher Ed reports on Laureate Education’s IPO as a benefit corporation below:

The largest U.S.-based for-profit college chain became the first benefit corporation to go public Wednesday morning.

Laureate Education, which has more than a million students at 71 institutions across 25 countries, had been privately traded since 2007. Several major for-profit higher education companies have over the last decade bounced back and forth between publicly and privately held status; also yesterday, by coincidence, the Apollo Group, owner of the University of Phoenix, formally went back into private hands….In its public debut, the company raised $490 million….

Becker

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