Sky Blog
At first glance, the question posed above may sound slightly paranoid. Still, sometimes a measure of paranoia may be justified. In any event, this column is less a prediction of the future than a review of what is actually happening, …
At first glance, recent progress towards transparency in corporate climate-risk disclosures seems exceptional. Over 2,000 companies now publish annual reports showing their carbon emissions data (although most self-interestedly omit Scope 3 data). Many (including most recently ExxonMobil) have made a …
This is a speech that Professor Coffee is scheduled to deliver today as part of a webinar program that will pay tribute to Judge Jack Weinstein and will be presented jointly by Columbia Law School and the Institute of Judicial …
Last week, the House of Representatives passed the “Insider Trading Prohibition Act” (“ITPA”).[1] Proponents are hailing it as a triumph of bipartisan cooperation. Conversely, critics are calling it the “Insider Trading Protection Act.” This is because the bill codifies …
Hedge fund activism is a topic on which most law professors have closed their minds. They learned in student days that activist hedge funds are excellent agents of change that efficiently discipline managements at targeted firms and increase shareholder wealth. …
What a difference a week makes! Almost two weeks ago, the frenzied discussion of GameStop assumed that a proletarian revolution was in progress, that the masses had organized themselves through Reddit and Robinhood, and that they were marching on the …
This is the gossip season, and almost everyone has heard a rumor about who will be the next chair of the SEC. Although I was interviewed by the Biden transition team (for my views, not as a candidate), my sources …
The European Commission retained Ernst & Young (“EY”) to undertake a detailed study of “short-termism” and, implicitly, to report whether it was a major roadblock to more sustainable corporate governance. Their study was then presented at a three day international …
This brief column will assert that three developments that seem unrelated are in fact closely related and may soon impact U.S. corporate governance with the force of a freight train. This column summarizes a longer article just posted by this …
Experienced litigators know that an adverse appellate decision (even from the U.S. Supreme Court) rarely ends their case. The question is instead: What is the next move? What defenses do we fall back on? So it is likely to be …
Two extraordinary accounting scandals — one at Luckin Coffee Inc. in China and the other at Wirecard AG, the German digital payments firm — have revealed brazen and bankrupting frauds, directed by the most senior executives at each firm. Together, …
The CARES Act was passed under intense pressure and with minimal transparency. The consequence of this opaque process is that there are some surprising windfalls. No criticism is here expressed of the act’s purpose, but Wall Street knows one thing …
The coronavirus’ impact across the United States will make an epic, even Tolstoyan, saga, sweeping across all levels of American society and featuring brave heroes and tragic victims. But so far, this story has lacked one figure that every drama …
The law of insider trading generally moves with the speed of molasses in February. For every two steps forward, there is one (or more) steps backward. But this winter has seen a rapid succession of developments. First, the Himes Bill …
Short selling serves a critical function in the capital markets by encouraging price discovery and preventing the formation of asset bubbles. But recent years have seen a rise in “negative activism,” a novel phenomenon that has flourished in the era …
Most everyone has had their say about the collapse of WeWork’s failed initial public offering (“IPO”).[1] Clearly, this failure was overdetermined, as many competing causes can explain it, including: (1) the extraordinary level of self-dealing that its CEO, Adam …
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This post comes to us from John C. Coffee, Jr., the Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School and the Director of its Center on Corporate Governance. These slides accompanied a lunch address that he …
Lord Denning, a highly quotable British judge, once remarked:
“As a moth is drawn to the light, so is a litigant drawn to the United States.”[1]
Some reasons for this strong attraction are obvious: (1) the U.S. (and only …