We collect data on the record of every action in hundreds of derivative cases and merger class actions involving public companies filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery from 2004 to 2011. We use these data to analyze how markets respond to litigation in the most important court for corporate...

We exploit the staggered adoption of the universal demand (UD) laws across U.S. states, which impedes shareholder rights to initiate derivative lawsuits, as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the relation between shareholder litigation rights and firm capital structures. We find that weaker...

Shareholder activism – defined as dissatisfied investors attempting to initiate change in a company without a change in control – has long been a feature of the US investment landscape. The practice is increasingly being exported abroad as funds search for new opportunities in under-explored...

This study examines the role of media coverage on meritorious shareholder litigation. Asserting a causal effect of the media on litigation is normally difficult due to the endogenous nature of media coverage. However, we use the Wall Street Journal’s backdating coverage to overcome these...

This Article presents new empirical evidence demonstrating that serious intra-corporate disputes at public companies now attract lawsuits in multiple fora. No existing mechanism can reliably coordinate shareholder litigation in different court systems, and the resulting disorder generates...