A judicial determination of fair value in a private company can be a difficult and imprecise process. This difficulty coupled with variations in way mergers are negotiated and structured and the potential for conflicts of interest lend uncertainty to appraisal proceedings. As a result, corporate...

Corporate governance mechanisms designed to ensure that managers act in shareholders' interest have evolved dramatically over the past forty years. “Old governance” mechanisms such as independent directors and performance-based executive compensation have been supplemented by innovations...

After almost seventy years of debate, on August 25, 2010, the SEC adopted a federal proxy access rule. This Article examines the new rule and concludes that, despite the prolonged rule-making effort, the new rule is ambiguous in its application and unlikely to increase shareholder input into the...

In their forthcoming article, Redesigning the SEC: Does the Treasury Have a Better Idea?, Professors John C. Coffee, Jr., and Hillary Sale offer compelling reasons to rethink the SEC's role. This article extends that analysis, evaluating the SEC's responsibility for the current financial crisis...

The financial crisis of 2008 focused increasing attention on corporate America and, in particular, the risk-taking behavior of large financial institutions. A growing appreciation of the “public” nature of the corporation resulted in a substantial number of high profile enforcement actions....

The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 mandated a number of regulatory reforms including a requirement that large U.S. public companies provide their shareholders with the opportunity to cast a non-binding vote on executive compensation. The “say on pay” vote was designed to rein in excessive levels of...

Scholars, practitioners and policymakers continue to debate what constitutes “good” corporate governance. Academic efforts to evaluate the effect of governance provisions such as dual class voting structures, staggered boards of directors and separating the positions of CEO and Chairman of...

In this paper, we examine the effect of country-level political relationships on SEC oversight of US-listed foreign firms, ranging from routine review of issuer filings to enforcement actions. We find that the political relationship between a foreign firm’s home country and the US is an...