Sky Blog
M&A activity in April 2018, as measured by number of deals, dipped from March 2018 levels in the U.S. and globally across every metric. The total number of deals decreased by 15.2% to 669 in the U.S. and 9.7% to …
In the consolidated cases of Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris, and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc.,[1] the U.S. Supreme Court held on May 21 that arbitration agreements in which …
Auditor judgment and technical competence are central to audits, and a lack of those qualities has led to many audit deficiencies, according to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC), and other regulators around …
The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (the “Act”), which became law on May 24, contains the first major package of revisions to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The Act …
The following is an abbreviated version of Professor Coffee’s May 23 testimony before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments. The deleted portions of his testimony relate to the specific content of proposed bills to …
In all aspects of corporate life—from creation to expansion and from restructuring to demolition—experts are available to advise directors, managers, shareholders, financiers, and other participants. In particular, directors often rely on, for example, accounting firms to review financial statements, attorneys …
Directors frequently hold multiple board seats, simultaneously lending their expertise to the boards of multiple firms. Director “busyness” is often thought to be detrimental to firm performance, as it leaves directors with insufficient time to devote to their duties at …
Public-company information has great social value. However, it is widely thought that left to their own devices, firms will under-disclose information about their condition and prospects. This thinking is embodied in the mandatory-disclosure regime that sits at the foundation of …
The recent announcements from major institutional investors about issues such as gender diversity and climate change seem like reactions to social ills. But they are not unmoored from investing. They are logical expressions of a relatively newly empowered, third phase …
Electronically stored data play a vital role in criminal investigations. The framework for the transfer of such data across national borders continues to be difficult to navigate. Recent legislative developments in the United States and the European Union signal a …
It is an old maxim that “Hard cases make bad law.” But it may have a corollary: “Bad facts make hard law.” When a defendant clearly overreaches, the court may not let small details stand in its way. The decision …
Prior research has documented the existence of disclosure externalities, or information spillovers, between firms in a number of different settings. The idea is that when two firms are economically related, public disclosures by one firm can affect the stock price …
It is received wisdom that institutional investors have insufficient incentives to cast informed votes because they compete on relative performance. If BlackRock invests in the monitoring of one of its portfolio companies, it will become relatively less competitive vis-à-vis the …
On April 20, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Varjabedian v. Emulex Corp. that a violation of Section 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78n(e) (Exchange Act), which governs tender …
It’s not every day that Italian capitalism can be heralded as a bastion of transparency. But the showdown on May 4 at Telecom Italia’s board meeting between U.S. activist fund Elliott Management and French conglomerate Groupe Bolloré proved to be …
On April 27, 2018, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”), the leading industry group representing broker-dealers, banks and asset managers, along with other securities industry related groups, released a report called “Expanding the On-Ramp: Recommendations to Help More …
For decades, corporate law played a pivotal role in regulating corporations across the United States. Consequently, Delaware, the leading state of incorporation, and its courts played a central part in corporate law and governance. More than half of publicly traded …
On March 16, 2018, the Center for Audit Quality (the “CAQ”) published Non-GAAP Financial Measures: A Roadmap for Audit Committees[1] (the “Roadmap”) to provide guidance to audit committees on advancing their oversight and involvement with non-GAAP financial measures. The …
Once a legal unknown, Michael Cohen made it last week to the front pages of both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Charges swirl around him as the personal fixer for President Trump and the alleged …
I am very happy to be with you in Manhattan. You may have heard that I have been kind of busy in Washington.
After I speak with you this morning, I need to head across Times Square to participate in …