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How and when should CSR codes be enforced through litigation? This short article by Jan M. Smits attempts to answer that question. The abstract is below and the link to the article is here:

A central question in the debate on corporate social responsibility is to what extent CSR Codes can be enforced among private parties. This contribution argues that this question is best answered by reference to the applicable doctrinal legal system. Such a doctrinal approach has recently regained importance in American scholarship, while it is still the prevailing method of legal analysis in Europe. Applying a doctrinal analysis of CSR Codes allows to make the possibility of private law enforcement, i.e. enforcement by means of contract or tort, dependent on three different elements: the exact type of claim that is brought, the evolving societal standards about the binding nature of CSR Codes, and the normative complexity of the doctrinal system itself. This approach allows to make a typology of cases in which the enforceability of CSR Codes can be disputed. It is subsequently argued that societal standards have not yet reached the stage where the average consumer who buys a product from a retailer can keep that…

Last month, a colleague of mine received a request from a law review (one unaffiliated with her or our institution) to perform a peer review of an article that the law review was considering for publication.  The period for the requested review was short–about a week–and arrived with no prior notice two weeks before classes started.  No compensation was offered.  While she (an acknowledged expert in the overall field and on the specific topic covered in the article) was, indeed, flattered by the request and very interested in the article, she had to turn the request down given the nature and extent of her commitments here.  

She wondered, and I did, too, how prevalent these kinds of requests are from law reviews.  I have performed peer reviews of articles for our journals here at UT Law from time to time and have considered it part of my service to the institution.  But the only other peer reviews I have done have been of books or book proposals for publishers, for which I have received some (not a lot of) compensation for my trouble.  So (given that I know I sometimes have blinders on and miss things that are going on outside my narrow span of activity), I asked around . . . .  My co-bloggers and other colleagues contributed to the facts and ideas I share here.

Limited liability companies (LLCs) are often viewed as some sort of a modified corporation.  This is wrong, as LLCs are unique entities (as are, for example, limited partnerships), but that has not stopped lawyers and courts, including this nation’s highest court, from conflating LLCs and corporations.  

About four and a half years ago, in a short Harvard Business Law Review Online article, I focused on this oddity, noting that many courts

seem to view LLCs as close cousins to corporations, and many even appear to view LLCs as subset or specialized types of corporations. A May 2011 search of Westlaw’s “ALLCASES” database provides 2,773 documents with the phrase “limited liability corporation,” yet most (if not all) such cases were actually referring to LLCs—limited liability companies. As such, it is not surprising that courts have often failed to treat LLCs as alternative entities unto themselves. It may be that some courts didn’t even appreciate that fact. (footnotes omitted).

I have been writing about this subject again recently, so I decided to revisit the question of just how many courts call LLCs “limited liability corporations” instead of “limited liability companies.”  I returned to Westlaw, though this time…

Hi, my name is Steve, and I’m an academic.

I’m paid to express my opinions. The more I publish, the  greater the rewards: tenure, promotion, raises, summer research grants, chaired professorships, conference invitations.

My situation isn’t unique. The reward structure is the same at most law schools and in the rest of higher education. The more you write, the more you get.

I once asked a dean (who shall remain nameless) what would happen if a faculty member received a summer research grant and the research didn’t pan out, didn’t produce anything worth publishing. The dean said that never happens because you can  find an outlet to publish almost anything.

But do we really need all that “scholarship”? Would the world be any worse if I and other academics spent more time thinking and crafting a few high-quality articles that really added to the discussion, instead of trying to keep up the stream of constant publication? Would law and legal education suffer if we cut the number of law review articles in half?

Incentives are part of the problem. I have been in law teaching for 29 years, and my sense is that the pressure to publish is increasing. Quantity…

It’s always nice to blog and research about a hot topic. Last week I wrote about compliance challenges for those who would like to rush down to do business in Cuba- the topic of this summer’s research. Yesterday, Corporate Counsel Magazine wrote about the FCPA issues; one of my concerns. Earlier this week, I attended a meeting with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and the United States International Trade Commission. Apparently, on December 17th, the very same day that President Obama made his surprise announcement that he wanted to re-open relations with Cuba, Senator Ron Wyden coincidentally sent a request to the USITC asking for an investigation and report on trade with Cuba and an analysis of restrictions. Accordingly, the nonpartisan USITC has been traveling around the country speaking to lawyers and business professionals conducting fact-finding meetings, in order to prepare a report that will be issued to the public in September 2015. Tomorrow the Miami Finance Forum is holding an event titled the New Cuba Revolution.

This will be my third and final post on business and Cuba and in this post I will discuss the focus of my second potential law review article…

Last week, I looked lovingly at a picture of a Starbucks old-fashioned grilled cheese sandwich. It had 580 calories. I thought about getting the sandwich and then reconsidered and made another more “virtuous” choice. These calorie disclosures, while annoying, are effective for people like me. I see the disclosure, make a choice (sometimes the “wrong” one), and move on.

Regular readers of this blog know that I spend a lot of time thinking about human rights from a corporate governance perspective. I thought about that uneaten sandwich as I consulted with a client last week about the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act. The law went into effect in 2012 and requires retailers, sellers, and manufacturers that exceed $100 million in global revenue that do business in California to publicly disclose the degree to which they verify, audit, and certify their direct suppliers as it relates to human trafficking and slavery. Companies must also disclose whether or not they maintain internal accountability standards, and provide training on the issue in their direct supply chains. The disclosure must appear prominently on a company’s website, but apparently many companies, undeterred by the threat of injunctive action by the state Attorney…

I recently finished my law review submission season, placing two articles: The Social Enterprise Law Market at Maryland Law Review (on jurisdictional competition and social enterprise entity forms) and An Early Report on Benefit Reports at West Virginia Law Review (on data collected last summer on statutory reporting compliance by benefit corporations).

Below, I share a few words of advice for my new law review editors and any law review editor readers. I share this advice acknowledging that I disregarded much of it when I was an editor on my school’s law review. Also, as mentioned below, I fully recognize and appreciate the work law review editors put into our articles.   

Consider Blind Review. I still haven’t heard a good argument against law reviews moving to blind review of articles. A very few, maybe two, of the top-ranked journals appear to have made the move, but the vast majority have not. 

Consider Peer Review. I understand, a bit better, the pushback against a traditional peer-review system, but consider involving your faculty in the process more heavily and consider obtaining outside faculty reviewers (as some of the elite journals are already doing). 

Consider Exclusive Submission Windows. A few journals are…

Regular readers know that I have blogged repeatedly about my opposition to the US Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rule, which aims to stop the flow of funds to rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Briefly, the US law does not prohibit the use of conflict minerals, but instead requires certain companies to obtain an independent private sector third-party audit of reports of the facilities used to process the conflict minerals; conduct a reasonable country of origin inquiry; and describe the steps the company used to mitigate the risk, in order to improve its due diligence process. The business world and SEC are awaiting a First Amendment ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on the “name and shame” portion of the law, which requires companies to indicate whether their products are DRC Conflict Free.” I have argued that it is a well-intentioned but likely ineffective corporate governance disclosure that depends on consumers to pressure corporations to change their behavior.

The proposed EU regulation establishes a voluntary process through which importers of certain minerals into the EU self-certify that they do not contribute to financing in “conflict-affected” or “high risk areas.” Unlike Dodd-Frank, it is not limited to Congo.

From the Faculty Lounge:

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This just in:

The Penn State Law Review is conducting an exclusive spring-cycle article review. Any article submitted to this exclusive review between now and April 19th will be evaluated by April 27th. If you have submitted an article to the Penn State Law Review previously, you must resubmit your article for consideration in the exclusive article review.

By submitting your article, you agree to accept an offer for publication, should one be extended. Any articles accepted will be published in Volume 120: Issue 1 or Issue 2 of this review—both of which are slated for publication in summer of 2015.

If you have an article that you would like to submit, please e-mail an attached copy of the article, along with your cv and cover letter, to esg5028@law.psu.edu . Please include “Exclusive Spring 2015 Article Review” in the subject line.

Over the past few weeks I have posted extensively on how gambling laws treat commercial NCAA Tournament pools.  However, March Madness pools are not the only form of online sports gaming proliferating on the Internet.  Indeed, play-for-cash “daily fantasy sports” contests have recently become big business.  Even the National Basketball Association is now a shareholder in one of these ventures (FanDuel).

With the legal status of “daily fantasy sports” still relatively unsettled, it is my pleasure to announce the online publication of sections 1-4 of my newest law review article “Navigating the Legal Risks of Daily Fantasy Sports: A Detailed Primer in Federal and State Gambling Law.”   This article explores the legal status of “daily fantasy sports” in light of both federal and state gambling laws, and explains why the legal status of such contests likely varies based on both contest format and states of operation.

The full version of this article will be published in the January 2016 edition of University of Illinois Law Review.  In the interim, I welcome any thoughts or comments.