American corporate law scholars have long focused on state-to-state jurisdictional competition as a powerful engine in the making of American corporate law. Yet much corporate law is made in Washington, D.C. Federal authorities regularly make law governing the American corporation, typically via...

Delaware makes the corporate law governing most large American corporations. Since Washington can take away any, or all, of that lawmaking, a deep conception of American corporate law should show how, when, and where Washington leaves lawmaking authority in state hands, and how it affects what...

The Trust Indenture Act prohibits a binding vote of bondholders to change any core term-principal amount, interest rate, or maturity date-of a bond issue. In this Article, I show how the prohibition on a collective action clause inhibits a troubled company's ability to reorganize outside of...

Chrysler, a failing auto manufacturer, was reorganized in a controversial chapter 11 in 2009. Financial creditors were paid a quarter of the amount owed them, while other creditors were paid more. The reorganization's defenders asserted, among other things, that the proceeding and the sale...

Delaware and Washington interact in making corporate law. In prior work I showed how Delaware corporate law can be, and often is, confined by federal action. Sometimes Washington acts and preempts the field, constitutionally or functionally. Sometimes Delaware tilts toward or follows Washington...

Chrysler entered and exited bankruptcy in 42 days, making it one of the fastest major industrial bankruptcies in memory. It entered as a company widely thought to be ripe for liquidation if left on its own, obtained massive funding from the United States Treasury, and exited via a pseudo sale of...

Distressed firms with publicly issued bonds often seek to restructure the bonds' payment terms to better reflect the firm's weakened repayment capabilities and thereby avoid a bankruptcy. But Depression-era securities law bars the bondholders from agreeing via a binding out-of-bankruptcy vote to...