The 21st century has been marred by corporate scandal after scandal, including financial fraud, pyramid schemes, international bribery, and decades of sexual harassment. This raises an important question regarding the role of corporate and tort law in controlling the behavior of corporate...

Directors and supervisory board members (officers) are increasingly being held personally liable. Directors & Officers (D&O) liability insurance offers directors and supervisory board members ample protection against directors' and officers' liability. On the one hand, this has many advantages...

We analyze a hand-collected dataset of 1669 executive compensation packages at 34 firms included in the main German stock market index (DAX) for the years 2006- 2014 in order to investigate the impact of the 2009 say on pay legislation. First, we observe that the compensation packages of...

This paper integrates and further develops the analysis of two discussion papers we circulated earlier, “Lucky CEOs” and “Lucky Directors.” Our study contributes to understanding the corporate governance determinants and implications of backdating practices during the decade of...

This Article reports results of an empirical study that suggests that the current economic crisis has changed managerial behavior in the US in a way that may impede economic recovery. The study finds a strong, statistically significant and economically meaningful, positive correlation between...

How do you build the best board for your organization? What attributes and skills are required by law and what mix of experiences and talents will give you the best corporate governance? What are the commonly required director attributes that are a must for each board and how do you customize...

The average publicly-traded firm pays its CEO millions of dollars in deferred compensation and defined-benefit pension commitments. Scholars debate whether firms use these payments to efficiently align managerial interests with those of creditors, or whether instead they represent “hidden”...

The agency problem at the core of corporate law stems from a chronic potential conflict of interest between directors' self-interest and that of shareholders. Corporate law views directors' self-interest in terms of diverting welfare to directors at the expense of shareholders. Another component...

Golden parachutes have attracted much debate and substantial attention from investors and public officials for more than two decades, and the Dodd-Frank Act mandated a shareholder vote on any future adoption of a golden parachute by public firms. We analyze the relationship that golden...

Golden parachutes (“GPs”) are now standard contract provisions for public company CEOs. While they have become ubiquitous, they have also been severely criticized for harming shareholder value. As a result, GPs have been subjected to intense shareholder activism and uniquely penalized under...