Dear BLPB Readers:

The University of Oklahoma College of Law

Associate Professor of Law  

The University of Oklahoma College of Law seeks outstanding applicants, either entry level or pre-tenure lateral, to fill a full-time tenure-track position to begin fall semester 2021. Successful applicants must have a J.D. or equivalent academic degree, strong academic credentials, a commitment to excellence in teaching, and demonstrably outstanding potential for scholarship. We welcome candidates in all subject matter areas, with particular interest in filling curricular needs that include criminal law, family law, constitutional law, wills and trusts, bankruptcy, and real estate transactions.  Complete announcement is here: Download OULaw_TenureTrackHiringAnnouncement

 

2021 National Business Law Scholars Conference
June 17-18, 2021

The University of Tennessee College of Law
Knoxville, Tennessee

The National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC) will be held on Thursday and Friday, June 17-18, 2021.  The 2021 conference is being hosted by The University of Tennessee College of Law.  The conference will be conducted in a hybrid or online format, as determined by the NBLSC planning committee in the early part of 2021.

This is the twelfth meeting of the NBLSC, an annual conference that draws legal scholars from across the United States and around the world. We welcome all scholarly submissions relating to business law. Junior scholars and those considering entering the academy are especially encouraged to participate. If you are thinking about entering the academy and would like to receive informal mentoring and learn more about job market dynamics, please let us know when you make your submission.  We expect to be in a position to offer separate programming for aspiring law professors and market entrants, as we have done in the past, likely on a separate date after the conference concludes.

Please use the conference website, which will be available at https://law.utk.edu/ in January, to submit an abstract or paper by April 9, 2021. An announcement will be made on the Business Law Prof Blog when the conference site becomes available.  If you have any questions, concerns, or special requests regarding the schedule, please email Professor Eric C. Chaffee at eric.chaffee@utoledo.edu. We will respond to submissions with notifications of acceptance shortly after the deadline. We anticipate the conference schedule will be circulated in May.

Conference Planning Committee:

Afra Afsharipour (University of California, Davis, School of Law)
Tony Casey (The University of Chicago Law School)
Eric C. Chaffee (The University of Toledo College of Law)
Steven Davidoff Solomon (University of California, Berkeley School of Law)
Joan MacLeod Heminway (The University of Tennessee College of Law)
Kristin N. Johnson (Emory University School of Law)
Elizabeth Pollman (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School)
Jeff Schwartz (University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law)
Megan Wischmeier Shaner (University of Oklahoma College of Law)

In my first post on the “Study on Directors’ Duties and Sustainable Corporate Governance” (“Study on Directors’ Duties”) prepared by Ernst & Young for the European Commission, I said that corporate boards are free to apply a purposive approach to profit generation. I added that:

[a]pplying such a purposive approach will depend on moral leadership, CEOs’ and corporate boards’ long-term vision, clear measurement of the companies’ interests and communication of those interests to shareholders, and rethinking executive compensation to encourage board members to take on other priorities than shareholder value maximization. Corporate governance has a significant transformative role to play in this context. 

This week, I focus on corporate governance’s enabling power. Therefore, “T” is for transformative corporate governance. Market-led developments can and do precede and inspire legal rules. Corporate governance rules are not an exception in this regard. To illustrate these rules’ transformative potential, I dwell on the ongoing debate around stakeholder capitalism.

First question. What is stakeholder capitalism? In a recent debate with Lucian Bebchuk about the topic, Alex Edmans explained that “stakeholder capitalism seeks to create shareholder welfare only through creating stakeholder welfare.” The definition suggests that the way to create value for both shareholders and stakeholders alike is by increasing the size of the pie.

In his book, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, R. Edward Freeman defines “stakeholder” as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives.” (1984: p. 46). The Study on Directors’ Duties is concerned with the negative impact of corporate short-termism on stakeholders such as the environment, the society, the economy, and the extent to which corporate short-termism may impair the protection of human rights and the attainment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). I am not going to discuss whether there is a causal link between short-termism and sustainability. In my previous post, I say that we need to take a step back to determine short-termism and whether it is as harmful as it sounds. Instead, I am interested in finding an answer to the following question. Has stakeholder capitalism practical value?

Edmans points out that “in a world of uncertainty, stakeholder capitalism is practically more useful.” It is more challenging to put a tag on various things in a world of uncertainty, and the market misvalues intangibles. Therefore, in this context, stakeholder capitalism would be a better decisional tool that improves shareholder value and profitability and shareholders’ welfare.

Still, how do we measure CEO’s and directors’ accountability toward shareholders and the corporation for the choices they make? Can CEOs and directors be blamed for not caring about social causes? Is stakeholder capitalism, or as Lucian Bebchuk calls it “stakeholderism,” the right way to force managers to make the right decisions for the shareholders and the corporation?

While Edmans stays firmly behind stakeholder capitalism because he considers it has practical value in increasing shareholder wealth while increasing shareholders’ welfare, Bebchuk maintains that “stakeholderism” is “illusory” and costly both for shareholders and stakeholders. Clearly, they disagree.

However, both Edmans and Bebchuk agree on this – we need a normative framework that goes beyond private ordering and prevents companies from subjecting stakeholders to externalities such as climate change, inequality, poverty, and other adverse economic effects.

Corporate managers respond to incentives such as executive compensation, financial reporting, and shareholders’ ownership. The challenge is to understand what type of corporate governance rules are more likely to nudge CEOs and managers to value other interests than shareholder wealth maximization. Would a set of principles suffice, or do we need a regulatory framework?

Freeman’s definition of a stakeholder is telling because it allows us to think of corporations and governments as stakeholders for sustainable development. I am also inspired by the distinction that Yves Fassin makes in his article The Stakeholder Model Refined, between stakeholders (e.g., consumers), stakewatchers (e.g., non-governmental organizations) and stakekeepers (e.g., regulators). I suggest that the way to ensure stakeholder capitalism’s practical value is to create corporate governance rules based on appropriate standards. The SDGs afford the propriety of those standards.

Within this regulatory setting, corporate governance will fulfill its transformative potential by enabling, for example, the representation and protection of stakeholders, the representation of “stakewatchers” through the attribution of voting and veto rights and nomination to the management board (similar to German co-determination by which stakeholders like employees are appointed to the supervisory board). Corporate governance will show its transformative potential by enabling the expansion of directors’ fiduciary duties to include the protection of stakeholders’ interests, accountability of corporate managers, consultation rights, and additional disclosure requirements.  

The authors Onyeka K. Osuji and Ugochi C. Amajuoyi contributed an interesting piece, titled Sustainable Consumption, Consumer Protection and Sustainable Development: Unbundling Institutional Septet for Developing Economies to the book Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing and Emerging Markets: Institutions, Actors and Sustainable Development. The book was edited by Onyeka K. Osuji, Franklin N. Ngwu, and Dima Jamali. The piece addresses the stakeholder model from the emerging economies perspective. It goes to show how interconnected we are.

I’ve previously discussed the common ownership problem in this space, and it basically comes down to the fact that common ownership – institutional investors who own stock in a broad swath of companies, including competing companies – is a mixed bag.  On the one hand, it may incentivize investors to address systemic risks, like climate change.  On the other, it operates in tension with a corporate governance framework predicated on shareholder wealth maximization, and may incentivize anticompetitive behavior to the extent investors care less about competition within an industry than maximizing profits for the industry as a whole.  And on the third hand, the mere fact that this kind of vast power over our economic system is exercised by only a handful of private players – whether used for good or for ill – may represent a political/democracy problem.

As a result, there have been proposals to break up the power of the largest fund families.  For example, Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst have proposed that fund families be limited to investing in 5% of any particular target company.

That’s not what’s on the table, however.

In two new releases, the FTC has proposed reinterpreting the Hart Scott Rodino Act.  That Act requires pre-review by the government whenever an acquirer proposes to obtain a significant amount of the voting securities of another company to ensure that the acquisition would not be anticompetitive.  How significant?  It’s a numerical test that varies every year.  For our purposes, though, what’s critical is that the requirements are softened when the investor is obtaining the securities “solely for the purpose of investment,” meaning, the acquirer “has no intention of participating in the formulation, determination, or direction of the basic business decisions of the issuer.”  Institutional investors like mutual fund companies are exempt from HSR reporting if they obtain securities “solely for the purpose of investment” and hold less than 15% of the target.

The FTC is looking into whether it should redefine what “solely for the purpose of investment” means.  Among other things, it is considering whether shareholders who participate in activities like “discussions of governance issues, discussions of executive compensation, or casting proxy votes” should no longer count as passive (and related rulemaking would ensure that holdings are considered at the family, rather than fund, level). 

What the FTC is looking into, then, is whether the ordinary engagement activities of index funds (or indeed, any shareholder) would make them active holders subject to the full range of HSR reporting.  They would not be prohibited from acquiring stock in companies that compete with each other.  They would simply be required to file paperwork with the government and await the outcome of a review before they could complete sizeable transactions.  Unless, of course, they agree to cease all attempts to engage with management.

Now, in general, I support the FTC’s attention to the problem of common ownership.  But I think the level on which we need to be thinking is consolidation in the asset management industry, and to some extent, the statutory framework may not be well-suited to deal with that problem.  I.e., from a consumer/retail investor standpoint, there are more mutual fund choices than ever, and fees are often quite low, so there may not be room for regulators to attack the problem by claiming asset management consolidation is itself anticompetitive.  Which means, regulators may be stuck with focusing on how asset managers deal with portfolio companies, and the HSR Act itself draws a distinction between acquisitions “solely for the purpose of investment” and acquisitions for other purposes, so it’s a natural avenue for the FTC to pursue.

That said, though much of the research into common ownership does not try to explain why or how common ownership results in anticompetitive behavior by portfolio companies, at least one explanation is that shareholders in such companies are passive – i.e., they don’t prod management to improve their competitive position, leading to a lack of competition.

If that’s right, narrowing the definition of “solely for the purpose of investment” could be the opposite of a solution.  It could reward the very disengagement that facilitates the antitrust problem, and disincentivize mutual funds from participating in the kind of oversight that might prod greater competition. 

Plus, I really cannot help but notice, it would also take mutual funds out of the business of policing executive pay, and ESG issues like climate change and diversity.  Which would be well in keeping with the general Trump Administration hostility to these kinds of shareholder interventions.

If you read the title, you’ll see that I’m only going to ask questions. I have no answers, insights, or predictions until the President-elect announces more cabinet picks. After President Trump won the election in 2016, I posed eleven questions and then gave some preliminary commentary based on his cabinet picks two months later. Here are my initial questions based on what I’m interested in — compliance, corporate governance, human rights, and ESG. I recognize that everyone will have their own list:

  1. How will the Administration view disclosures? Will Dodd-Frank conflict minerals disclosures stay in place, regardless of the effectiveness on reducing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Will the US add mandatory human rights due diligence and disclosures like the EU??
  2. Building on Question 1, will we see more stringent requirements for ESG disclosures? Will the US follow the EU model for financial services firms, which goes into effect in March 2021? With ESG accounting for 1 in 3 dollars of assets under management, will the Biden Administration look at ESG investing more favorably than the Trump DOL? How robust will climate and ESG disclosure get? We already know that disclosure of climate risks and greenhouse gases will be a priority. For more on some of the SEC commissioners’ views, see here.
  3. President-elect Biden has named what is shaping up to be the most diverse cabinet in history. What will this mean for the Trump administration’s Executive Order on diversity training and federal contractors? How will a Biden EEOC function and what will the priorities be?
  4. Building on Question 3, now that California and the NASDAQ have implemented rules and proposals on board diversity, will there be diversity mandates in other sectors of the federal government, perhaps for federal contractors? Is this the year that the Improving Corporate Governance Through Diversity Act passes? Will this embolden more states to put forth similar requirements?
  5. What will a Biden SEC look like? Will the SEC human capital disclosure requirements become more precise? Will we see more aggressive enforcement of large institutions and insider trading? Will there be more controls placed on proxy advisory firms? Is SEC Chair too small of a job for Preet Bharara?
  6. We had some of the highest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act fines on record under Trump’s Department of Justice. Will that ramp up under a new DOJ, especially as there may have been compliance failures and more bribery because of a world-wide recession and COVID? It’s more likely that sophisticated companies will be prepared because of the revamp of compliance programs based on the June 2020 DOJ Guidance on Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs and the second edition of the joint SEC/DOJ Resource Guide to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (ok- that was an insight).
  7. How will the Biden Administration promote human rights, particularly as it relates to business? Congress has already taken some action related to exports tied to the use of Uighur forced labor in China. Will the incoming government be even more aggressive? I discussed some potential opportunities for legislation related to human rights abuses abroad in my last post about the Nestle v Doe case in front of the Supreme Court. One area that could use some help is the pretty anemic Obama-era US National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct.
  8. What will a Biden Department of Labor prioritize? Will consumer protection advocates convince Biden to delay or dismantle the ERISA fiduciary rule? Will the 2020 joint employer rule stay in place? Will OSHA get the funding it needs to go after employers who aren’t safeguarding employees with COVID? Will unions have more power? Will we enter a more worker-friendly era?
  9. What will happen to whistleblowers? I served as a member of the Department of Labor’s Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee for a few years under the Obama administration. Our committee had management, labor, academic, and other ad hoc members and we were tasked at looking at 22 laws enforced by OSHA, including Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation rules. We received notice that our services were no longer needed after the President’s inauguration in 2017. Hopefully, the Biden Administration will reconstitute it. In the meantime, the SEC awarded record amounts under the Dodd-Frank whistleblower program in 2020 and has just reformed the program to streamline it and get money to whistleblowers more quickly.
  10. What will President-elect Biden accomplish if the Democrats do not control the Congress?

There you have it. What questions would you have added? Comment below or email me at mweldon@law.miami.edu. 

If you are attending the AALS Annual Meeting, I hope to see you here (Zoom link details forthcoming):

For Whose Benefit Public Corporations? Perspectives on Shareholder and Stakeholder Primacy
Sponsored by the Section on Socio-Economics
Co-Sponsored by the Sections on Business Associations and Securities Regulation 
Friday, January 8, 2021, 1:15 – 2:30 pm
(Papers drawn from this program will be published in the University of the Pacific Law Review)

Program Description

On August 19, 2019, the Business Roundtable, a self-described “association of chief executive officers of America’s leading companies,” issued a statement seeking to redefine the purpose of the corporation by moving away from shareholder primacy and towards a “commitment to all stakeholders.” Since that time, corporate governance experts have continued to vigorously debate the merits of shareholder primacy and stakeholder primacy. Focusing on tensions and synergies among the financial and other socio-economic interests of the corporation and its fiduciaries, shareholders, and other stakeholders, this panel seeks to provide relevant perspectives on the current state of this debate.

Panelists

Robert Ashford (Syracuse)
Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard)
Margaret Blair (Vanderbilt)
June Carbone (Minnesota)
Joshua Fershée (Dean, Creighton)
Sergio Gramitto (Monash)
Stefan Padfield (Moderator, Akron)
Edward Rubin (Vanderbilt)
Marcia Narine Weldon (Miami)

From the SEC press release (here):

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Robinhood Financial LLC for repeated misstatements that failed to disclose the firm’s receipt of payments from trading firms for routing customer orders to them, and with failing to satisfy its duty to seek the best reasonably available terms to execute customer orders. Robinhood agreed to pay $65 million to settle the charges.

According to the SEC’s order, between 2015 and late 2018, Robinhood made misleading statements and omissions in customer communications, including in FAQ pages on its website, about its largest revenue source when describing how it made money – namely, payments from trading firms in exchange for Robinhood sending its customer orders to those firms for execution, also known as “payment for order flow.” As the SEC’s order finds, one of Robinhood’s selling points to customers was that trading was “commission free,” but due in large part to its unusually high payment for order flow rates, Robinhood customers’ orders were executed at prices that were inferior to other brokers’ prices. Despite this, according to the SEC’s order, Robinhood falsely claimed in a website FAQ between October 2018 and June 2019 that its execution quality matched or beat that of its competitors. The order finds that Robinhood provided inferior trade prices that in aggregate deprived customers of $34.1 million even after taking into account the savings from not paying a commission.

Near the end of the term, the Trump Department of Labor recently announced its rule for investment advice accompanied by a WSJ op-ed from Jay Clayton and Eugene Scalia.  While there is much to digest, the rule largely aligns Labor with SEC Regulation Best Interest.  Much like the SEC’s approach under Chair Clayton, the DOL proposal takes the “eliminate or disclose” approach to conflicts as well. 

Ultimately, the new regulation isn’t likely to significantly improve outcomes for retail investors.  It leaves financial advisers free to continue operating with significant conflicts even when providing advice about retirement assets.  

Dear BLPB Readers:

The Edmond J. SafraCenter for Ethics at TelAviv University is accepting applications for its 2021-22 post-doctorate fellowship program. The Center offers grants to outstanding researchers who study the ethical, moral and political aspects of markets, local or global, real or virtual. The Center encourages applications from all disciplines and fields, including economics, social sciences, business, the humanities, and the law.  Complete call for applications here: Download Call for Post-Doc 2021-22

For the high school student in your life:

The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. In addition to defending the rights of students and faculty, FIRE works to educate students and the general public on the necessity of free speech and its importance to a thriving democratic society.

The freedom of speech, enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, is a foundational American right. Nowhere is that right more important than on our college campuses, where the free flow of ideas and the clash of opposing views advance knowledge and promote human progress. It is on our college campuses, however, where some of the most serious violations of free speech occur, and where students are regularly censored simply because their expression might offend others….

In a persuasive letter or essay, convince your peers that free speech is a better idea than censorship.

Details here.