Brent Horton of Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business recently posted his American Business Law Journal article on pre-Securities Act prospectuses.

For interested readers, the abstract is below and the article can be downloaded here.

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Some legal scholars—skeptics—question the conventional wisdom that corporations failed to provide adequate information to prospective investors before the passage of the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act). These skeptics argue that the Securities Act’s disclosure requirements were largely unnecessary. For example, Paul G. Mahoney in his 2015 book, Wasting A Crisis: Why Securities Regulation Fails, relied on the fact that the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) imposed disclosure requirements in the 1920s to conclude that stories about poor pre-Act disclosure are “demonstrably wrong”. (Likewise, Roberta Romano argued in Empowering Investors that “there is little tangible proof” that disclosure was inadequate pre-Securities Act.) 

This Article sets out to determine who is correct, those that accept the conventional wisdom that pre-Securities Act disclosure was inadequate, or the skeptics?

The Author examined twenty-five stock prospectuses (the key piece of disclosure provided to prospective investors) that predate the Securities Act. This primary-source documentation strongly suggests that—contrary to the assertions of skeptics—pre-Act prospectuses did fail to provide potential investors with financial statements, as well as information about capitalization and voting rights, and executive compensation.

I am intrigued by VC Glasscock’s recent decision in In re Oracle Corporation Derivative Litigation, where he found that demand was excused with respect to a claim that Larry Ellison breached his fiduciary duties by functionally directing that the company acquire Netsuite, in which he owned a 39% stake. 

First, the treatment of Larry Ellison:  He only owns 27% of Oracle and, though he remains Chair of the Board, he no longer occupies the role of CEO.  Nonetheless, the court was willing to draw the pleading-stage inference that he functionally has control of the company, such that both the outside and inside directors would fear for their positions if they crossed them.  Yet at the same time, the court was unwilling to go so far as to formally designate him as a “controlling shareholder,” with all of the scrutiny that role would attract.  In some ways, this is a welcome recognition that control is not simply an on/off switch: degrees of control may exist along a spectrum, and may compromise (nominally) independent directors’ judgment only so long as the relevant decision is not too extreme.  At the same time, Delaware law tends to treat control status as binary, and in the past has only recognized the existence of control under a fairly narrow set of circumstances (cf. Corwin v. KKR, 125 A.3d 304 (2015), where the court refused to recognize KKR as a controlling shareholder of Financial Holdings, despite the fact that Financial Holdings was run by a KKR affiliate and existed to provide financing services to KKR).

Second, the treatment of the Board members:  The court concluded that 6 board members were conflicted, in large part because – following Sandys v. Pincus and Delaware County Employees Retirement Fund v. Sanchez – nominally independent directors in fact were entangled in a web of business and social relationships with Ellison and Oracle that would likely hinder their ability to impartially consider whether to file suit against Ellison.  None of these relationships would, by themselves, have disqualified any of the Board members (such as, for example, dependence on Ellison for participation in a cross-firm consulting initiative, and involvement in venture capital firms that look to Oracle as a potential acquirer), but the court found that the relationships collectively functioned to render the directors beholden to Ellison.  This holding signals that going forward, corporate directors are taking a risk if they tolerate or encourage extensive relationships with each other outside of the boardroom.

Thirdly, the treatment of shareholder votes: In determining that one board member lacked independence from Ellison, the court took into account the fact that as a member of the compensation committee, he had ignored repeated shareholder “withhold” votes and shareholder votes to reject Oracle’s executive pay practices.  In previous decisions, courts have refused to treat precatory shareholder votes on pay as having any legal significance, see Lisa Fairfax, Sue on Pay: Say on Pay’s Impact on Directors’ Fiduciary. Duties, 55 Ariz. L. Rev. 1 (2013); it seems someone found a use for them.  (I do wonder if there’s bitter with this sweet: Do approvals of “comically large” pay packages signal that directors’ actions have been approved by shareholders and therefore merit less judicial scrutiny?)

Finally, the court reserved judgment on the question whether In re Cornerstone Therapeutics Inc. Stockholder Litigation, 115 A.3d 1173 (Del. 2015) requires it to dismiss the complaint as to board members who lacked independence from Ellison for demand purposes, but against whom no claim had been stated regarding the underlying transaction.

All in all, it’s a fraught opinion and I look forward to seeing how it influences other decisions going forward.

As many readers have likely seen from the client updates going out from law firms, the Fifth Circuit struck down the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule on March 15th.  A divided panel ruled that Labor overstepped its authority when issuing the rule.  A copy of the opinion is available here.  

One thing that jumped out to me as I read the opinion was the characterization of persons that hold themselves out to the public and advertise their services as financial advisers as mere “salespeople.”  Admittedly, the law here is a mess.  The biggest problem I see is that the SEC never held the line on only allowing stockbrokers to give “incidental” advice to make use of the broker-dealer exception to the Investment Advisers Act.  That provisions exempts brokerage houses from the Investment Advisers Act if it’s “a “broker or dealer” whose advice is “solely incidental to the conduct of his business as a broker or dealer and who receives no special compensation therefor.” 15 U.S.C. § 80b-2(a)(11)(C).  Of course, one wonders why someone would work with a self-described financial adviser if not for the advice.

Labor has until April 30 to make a decision about whether to seek en banc review.

My goodness. In a recent case, a Massachusetts court deals with issues related to Bling Entertainment, LLC, which is, as you would expect, a limited liability company.  It is NOT a partnership (as the court correctly notes), but …

Yiming alleges Bling Defendants—as “managers, controlling members, and fellow members of Bling”—owed a duty of utmost good faith and loyalty to Yiming that they breached through their actions of fraud, self-dealing, embezzlement, and mismanagement. D. 16 ¶¶ 70-71. “It is well settled that partners owe each other a fiduciary duty of the utmost good faith and loyalty.” Karter v. Pleasant View Gardens, Inc., No. 16-11080-RWZ, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50462, at *13 (D. Mass. Mar. 31, 2017) (quoting Meehan v. Shaughnessy, 404 Mass. 419, 433 (1989)). Bling is not a partnership, however, but is rather a limited liability corporation. D. 16 ¶ 10.
YIMING WANG, Plaintiff, v. XINYI LIU, YUANLONG HUANG, ZHAONAN WANG, BLING ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, SHENGXI TINA TIAN & MT LAW, LLC, Defendants., No. 16-CV-12581, 2018 WL 1320704, at *6 (D. Mass. Mar. 13, 2018).
 
Negative. Well, the first part is right.  Bling is an LLC, not a partnership. But it is not a corporation.  This is where some readers are probably thinking, “there he goes again being overly formalistic.”  I am, of course, but here, it at least matters a little. Or could, and that’s all that concerns me.  The court continued: 
Nevertheless, Yiming argues the same duty applies, which is correct if Bling were a closely held corporation. See, e.g., Demoulas v. Demoulas Super Mkts., 424 Mass. 501, 528-29 (1997) (explaining that in Massachusetts, close corporations shareholders owe one another the duty of utmost good faith and loyalty); Zimmerman v. Bogoff, 402 Mass. 650, 657 (1988). In Massachusetts, a closely held corporation is “typified by: (1) a small number of stockholders; (2) no ready market for corporate stock; and (3) substantial majority stockholder participation in the management, direction and operations of the corporation.”Demoulas, 424 Mass. at 529 n.34 (quoting Donahue v. Rodd Electrotype Co. of New Eng., Inc., 367 Mass. 578, 586 (1975)).
Id. You know what an LLC doesn’t have?  Stockholders.  Or corporate stock. Or any stock for the matter.  The court had more to say: 
In this context, the duty of “utmost good faith and loyalty” applies to majority and minority shareholders alike. See Zimmerman, 402 Mass. at 657-58. Although Yiming did not affirmatively plead that Bling is a close corporation, he did plead that this duty applied to Bling Defendants. D. 16 ¶ 70. Bling Defendants did not contest that they owed a fiduciary duty to Yiming. See D. 26 at 8-9. Accordingly, the Court declines to dismiss this claim.
Id. But we have never established that an LLC owes fiduciary duties to anyone.  In Massachusetts, fiduciary duties apply for LLCs as we expect in all states, and the ability to modify or abrogate those duties are, unlike Delaware, limited (and perhaps very limited).  Nonetheless, it would be worth exploring that and explain the source of the duty.  The court never explores whether such duties apply to LLCs, and apparently the plaintiffs never even asserted that was the case.  
 
A quick look at Massachusetts law suggests the outcome here would likely be the same for LLCs, but still, can we please establish that?  If an issue warrants two paragraphs about partnerships and closely held corporations, one can spend a little time on the entity actually involved in the case.  I really don’t feel like that’s too much to expect. And yet my blog history very much suggests otherwise.  More work to do.  

As you may recall, I posted back in January on Emory Law’s upcoming biennial conference on transactional law and skills, “To Teach is to Learn Twice:  Fostering Excellence in Transactional Law and Skills Education.” The conference is scheduled for Friday, June 1, 2018 and Saturday, June 2, 2018. 

I learned earlier today that the conference organizers are offering one last chance for interested transactional law and skills instructors to submit a proposal and have extended the proposal deadline through Friday, March 30, 2018.  They do ask that folks submit proposals as soon as possible.  Even if you do not submit a proposal, you can register for the conference now.   

Our friends at Emory Law desire to reach far and wide to embrace the whole community of transactional law and skills educators, so please pass this on and encourage your colleagues–including new teachers and adjunct professors (both able to participate at reduced registration fees)–to attend.  I plan to be there again, although I can only attend the first day of the conference this year.  I always learn something at these conferences.  They attract a great, thoughtful community of teachers and scholars.

It’s that time of year again!  Tulane is hosting its 30th Annual Corporate Law Institute, a 2-day conference devoted to developments in corporate law, particularly mergers & acquisitions. 

I was only able to attend some of the panels on the first day, but I very much enjoyed getting a sense of what lawyers – and judges – are thinking about these days.  Below is a summary of some of the highlights that I found most intriguing:

[More after the jump]

Continue Reading Tulane’s 30th Annual Corporate Law Institute

Matt Kelly of Radical Compliance has posted on the costs and benefits of regulation. His post is timely considering this week’s rollback of certain Dodd-Frank banking provisions by the Senate. Among other things, Kelly notes that according to a draft OMB report, “across 133 major rules, the average annualized cost (in 2015 dollars) was $92.8 billion, average annualized benefit $554.8 billion. Benefits were six times larger than costs.” He further writes, with some skepticism, that the OMB is seeking comment from “peer reviewers with expertise… in regulatory policy” on its cost-benefit analysis as it finalizes its report. 

He also cited GW public policy professors who looked at over two hundred major rules adopted between 2007-2010 and found that “The design of the rulemaking process can both increase the pace with which rules are promulgated and reduce the level of detail in which they are presented, but only when care is taken to ensure the individuals intimately involved have greater breadth – relative to depth – in the competencies they bring to the endeavor.” As Kelly, observed, ” Teams with more “breadth of competencies” (one subject matter expert, one lawyer, one economic analyst, one regulatory affairs specialist, and so forth) tended to write rules more quickly and keep them simpler. In contrast, teams with depth of competency (a whole bunch of lawyers, or policy analysts, or subject matter experts) tended to take more time and, as the authors wonderfully phrased it, “elongated the resulting rules.”’

Although Kelly looks at these issues through the lens of a compliance expert, his post is worth a read as Congress and the SEC look at regulatory reform. He correctly focuses on the need to look at the quality rather than the quantity of regulation.