I am responding to the Council of Institutional Investors' (“CII”) request that the NASDAQ Stock Market (“NASDAQ”) and New York Stock Exchange amend its listing standards to require companies seeking to go public with dual class shares (classes of common stock with unequal voting rights)...

This comment letter to the SEC's staff roundtable on the proxy process requests the SEC to provide investment advisers with a liability safe harbor under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 when using board voting recommendations in voting their proxies as long as their clients do not prohibit...

Anyone who has had the opportunity to teach corporate law understands how difficult it is to provide a compelling explanation of why the business judgment rule (Rule) is so important. To provide a better explanation of why this is so, this Article takes the approach that the Aronson formulation...

As a result of the financial crisis of 2008, the employment compensation policies and decisions of Wall Street corporate boards have come under close scrutiny. Specifically, the willingness to approve company-wide compensation plans that resulted in the paying out of billions of dollars in...

The Department of Labor (“DOL”), through its administration of ERISA, has a critical role to play in the regulation of employee pension benefit plans. Most importantly, the DOL is tasked with enforcing the fiduciary duties of ERISA plan managers. Under ERISA, plan managers owe the strictest...

Offensive shareholder activism (more commonly known as hedge fund activism) can be understood as a corrective mechanism in the governance of a public company. The legitimacy of offensive shareholder activism as a corrective mechanism is based on numerous empirical studies that have found this...

Numerous empirical studies have shown that hedge fund activism has led to enhanced returns to investors and increased firm performance. Nevertheless, leading figures in the corporate governance world have taken issue with these studies and have argued that hedge fund activism leads to long-term...

Investment advisers to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and separately managed accounts are typically delegated the authority to vote their clients' securities. When this delegation occurs, these investment advisers have a fiduciary duty to vote their proxies, typically the voting rights...

The SEC's proxy process review has so far led the SEC to approve two separate releases regarding proxy advisors. The focus of this comment letter is on the guidance provided in one of those releases, Release No. IA-5325 (Release). This guidance identifies, under the Investment Advisers Act of...