The following guest post comes to us from Ilya Beylin of Seton Hall Law School.

It is assumed that stock prices of public companies should grow, and indeed, this has been the case consistently over the decades if something like the S&P500 index is considered in aggregate.  But stock price should only grow when firms become more profitable (or the discount rate decreases, which I am going to ignore).  Why should firms become more profitable?  A profitable firm is doing fine, and its stock represents an annuity.     

I raise these questions because of the operational predicates to profit growth.  Typically, growing profitability over the long term comes from either expansions of scale or scope.  I am ignoring cost cutting, which I believe tends to have more limited potential for sustained profitability growth.  But expansion (in scale or scope) within the hierarchical model of a firm results in an attenuation of internal monitoring.  Where expansion takes place, top management increasingly relies on middle management, dispersing information and control.  This then puts pressure on the systems through which information is aggregated and percolated to decision-makers.[1]  In the absence of an excellent team that somehow overcomes the challenges…

Saints and Sinners.  I’ve blogged here before about Ed Rock’s thesis that Delaware common law operates as much by singling out particular corporate actors for scathing criticism than by imposing formal sanction (arguably, the recent conflagration was because Delaware departed from that practice – but maybe not; at least some seem to have taken issue with judicial “tone,” as well).

Anyhoo, VC Laster’s opinion in Leo Investments Hong Kong Limited v. Tomales Bay Capital Anduril III, L.P.  is a shining example of the genre.  Laster ended up only imposing nominal damages of $1 on the defendant fund manager, but man did he rake the fund manager over the coals.  The case, incidentally, is also an interesting little window into private company capitalization – and, as I previously have blogged about, how private companies increasingly work closely with supposedly “independent” funds that hold their shares.

The setup: Iqbaljit Kahlon is a fund manager with ties to Peter Thiel. He formed a fund designed to buy certain shares of SpaceX.  One of the investors in the fund was supposed to be a publicly traded Chinese company, but Chinese law required that it disclose the investment.  SpaceX was not happy…

“We currently have tremendous district judges working very hard on our state’s business law cases and we want to find ways to better support them. We have been closely following the discussion related to Assembly Joint Resolution 8 in the Nevada Legislature and compliment the Legislature for focusing on the desire to greatly improve how the courts resolve complex business matters,” Herndon said. “To that end, I’m confident that within our own court system we can enhance our existing approach to business law cases and create a dedicated court where district court judges hear only business cases and do it without any additional fiscal impact on the state.”

“In addition, we can address the timeliness and efficiency of judicial review of business cases, eliminate the need to amend the constitution and the uncertainty associated with waiting years to see if

If so, you’re in luck! I was fortunate enough to be a guest on Fordham’s Bite-Sized Business Law podcast, hosted by Amy Martella, for an Elon Musk conversation. Here at Apple, here at Spotify, here at Amazon Music.

And speaking of podcasts. On this week’s Shareholder Primacy, Mike Levin talks to Andrew Droste of Columbia Threadneedle. Here at Apple, here at Spotify, and here at YouTube.

The SEC’s theory was that Ripple offered and sold a security called “XRP” without first registering it with the Agency, so investors were deprived of information about XRP and Ripple’s business that would allow them to make informed investment decisions. ECF No. 46. In 2023, the SEC moved for summary judgment, contending that it was “indisputable” that Ripple violated the Securities Act. ECF No. 837 at 50, 53, 63. In other words, the SEC asked the Court to rule in the Agency’s favor because Ripple could not win. On July 13, 2023, the Court

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9 provides:

(b) Fraud or Mistake; Conditions of Mind. In alleging fraud or mistake, a party must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake. Malice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of a person’s mind may be alleged generally.

That said, there are certain causes of action under the securities laws, like claims under Section 11 and 12 of the Securities Act, that do not require plaintiffs to prove that the defendant had any particular state of mind.  These claims do not, therefore, sound in fraud by their nature.  And, because the PSLRA did not alter the pleading standards for claims under the Securities Act, that means Section 11 and 12 claims are ordinarily subject to the more limited demands of Rule 8 pleading.

Nonetheless, federal courts have generally agreed that if a particular plaintiff’s allegations in a particular case come across as rather fraudy, the higher pleading standard will apply.  Plaintiffs have therefore gone to great lengths to avoid alleging fraud in connection with Securities Act claims, which can be particularly challenging when Section 10(b) claims arise out of the same facts – plaintiffs usually try to completely separate the two sets…

Stacie Strong recently posted Pro Bono Publico Versus Pro Bono Presidential on SSRN. It’s a look at the propriety of agreements to perform pro bono work to escape punitive executive orders against law firms. This is how the abstract describes it:

This Essay considers the propriety of these pro bono agreements from several perspectives. First, this Essay considers the voluntary nature of pro bono and examines the propriety of the executive branch coercing private lawyers to accede to particular pro bono obligations. Second, this Essay discusses the nature of pro bono activities as a means of assisting indigent individuals and considers whether presidential efforts to direct how private law firms fulfill their pro bono obligations constitute an improper privatization of the executive branch’s policy goals, particularly given presidential cuts to and curtailment of conventional public means of fulfilling those policy goals. Third, this Essay considers whether and to what extent the executive orders and settlement agreements discussed herein violate hard or soft principles of international law. The Essay concludes with brief suggestions about how to proceed going forward.

My initial reaction to these orders was to wonder whether services performed as consideration for a settlement even qualify as pro bono. …