Sky Blog
M&A activity showed mixed results in May 2017, with similar trends to April’s figures, both in terms of deal volume and number of deals.
Globally, total deal volume, as measured by dollar value, increased by 6.9% to $274.05 billion and …
In the aggregate, retail investors allocate tremendous amounts of capital and often turn to financial advisers to help them pick the best investment opportunities. In a recently published article, I describe how financial adviser conflicts of interest now distort …
Private Rule 10b-5 lawsuits have inspired volumes of academic literature, much of it focused on the suits’ social benefits (or lack thereof, depending on the author’s perspective). In a chapter for the forthcoming Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation, I …
With the recent release of the Trump administration’s tax plan, discussions of tax “reform,” or at least tax cuts, are once again at the center of American law and politics. Although the president’s tax plan is short on details, it …
In a new paper, we examine how tournament-based incentives affect corporate cash holdings and the value of those holdings for shareholders.
Before a firm selects a new CEO, it may run a tournament within the firm to rank its vice-presidents …
Professor John C. Coffee, Jr. of Columbia Law School is scheduled to speak on June 22 before the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee, which asked him to address the CHOICE Act’s impact on the SEC’s enforcement powers. These …
Congress, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”), and countless legislators have criticized corporate inversions — mergers designed to help American companies lower their tax bills by moving overseas — since McDermott International completed the first one in 1982. Nearly …
In the week since the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Kokesh v. SEC,[1] which rejected the Securities and Exchange Commission’s longstanding position that disgorgement was an equitable remedy not subject to the five-year statute of limitations in 28 …
With trillions of dollars in assets, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) play a major role in financial markets around the world. With billions (and perhaps trillions) of dollars’ worth of equity investments around the world, the investment behavior of SWFs is …
Fair lending compliance and community benefit plans are increasingly important factors in the merger and acquisition (M&A) approval process. In 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) approved 20 …
Perhaps not since the early 20th century has there been so much outrage about the malfeasance of the large corporation, and particularly the relationship of senior managers to such conduct. The sentiment is understandable. In reckoning with the wrongs of …
Two decisions by the Delaware Court of Chancery in the past two weeks reached seemingly disparate outcomes on fair value for the companies involved, but together stand for the general trend of recent appraisal decisions that deal price is the …
Financial regulatory institutions are at the center of intense debates over how to supervise financial firms and markets. They are also the focus of an important and growing body of literature that is mainly concerned with the question, “Who…
The corporate governance literature has shown a strong link between good governance practices and firm value. The mechanisms, however, that determine the choice of effective corporate governance and board arrangements in a changing global market are not well studied. In …
Efficiencies, economies of scale, and the general desire to improve the customer experience are the lifeblood of all mergers. And one of the most common efficiencies in any deal comes from enhanced purchasing power, or the ability to lower costs …
The fluidity of labor markets depends on the ease with which one side of the market can fulfill the needs of the other: whether workers can find employment that suits their skills and firms can find adequate substitutes for workers …
On June 8, 2017, the House of Representatives passed, by a 233-186 vote (with all Democrats and one Republican voting against), the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017, a bill principally designed to reverse many features of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street …
The era of large corporate penalties certainly looks to be over, and it is an open question whether we will continue to see companies pleading guilty or settling cases with deferred prosecution agreements. The notion of not imposing costs on …
On May 24, 2017, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrests and criminal indictment of four individuals for alleged insider trading on the basis of confidential information about upcoming federal government actions that …