Sky Blog
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 …
Notwithstanding decidedly hostile testimony last month from this humble columnist,[1] the U.S. House of Representatives will soon pass legislation (probably on a strict party-line basis) entitled, “The Financial CHOICE Act of 2017” (H.R. 10) (which acronym stands for “Creating …
The practice of nominal shareholder plaintiffs challenging virtually every sizable corporate merger with a lawsuit alleging a fiduciary breach has been a scandal for some time. At least when brought by the “bottom fishers” of the plaintiff’s bar, these suits …
It was predictable. Given a solidly Republican Congress and a Republican president, sooner or later, an effort would be made in the Trump administration to curb class actions. Not surprisingly, it has come sooner, with the “Fairness in Class Action …
Buried deep in Article I of the U.S. Constitution is an obscure provision known as the “Emoluments Clause.” In relevant part, it provides that:
“[N]o person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the consent of …
Europe (and much of the rest of the world) have long been skeptical of American-style opt-out class actions in which the plaintiff’s attorney defines the scope of the class. Similarly, they have prohibited the contingent fee, discouraged punitive damages, insisted …
Academics who profess expertise in corporate governance sometimes find themselves on very strange turf. That has been my status for the last two years, serving as an adviser to the U.S. Commerce Department in connection with the Obama Administration’s efforts …
Since the Volkswagen story first broke in September 2015, most observers have just scratched their heads and muttered to themselves in amazement: “What were they thinking? How could you place ‘defeat devices’ in 11 million cars worldwide and expect that …
Just six months ago, when the Supreme Court’s current term opened in October, things looked bleak for the class action. Three major cases were on the Court’s docket, and each seemed handpicked as a vehicle for the Court’s conservatives to …
The message of the Dow/DuPont merger and split up is simple: No firm is today “too big to target.” Activists can see the transaction as evidence that, even in the rare case where they lose a proxy fight (as they …
The New York Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman, created a stir this month by opening an investigation of Exxon Mobil Corp. pursuant to the Martin Act (New York’s “Blue Sky” Statute).[1] Various Congressmen, Senators and environmental groups also asked …
Washington is a strange town! The more you succeed, the more you attract enemies. If you outperform all prior occupants of your office, behave like a model gentleman, and achieve what no one thought possible, that will make you a …
This column will focus on two new and unrelated developments linked only by the fact that they both emanate from California: (1) the Ninth Circuit has handed down a significant decision on insider trading—United States v. Salman[1]—that disagrees …
The AIG decision (actually, Starr International Co. v. The United States[1]) has shocked many but for the wrong reason. Some commentators have focused on the ingratitude of Maurice Greenberg, AIG’s former CEO and the “architect” of its international …
Among practitioners, it is a customary cliché to say that all proxy contests—just like all trials—are unique and idiosyncratic. There is some truth to that easy generalization, but it also misses the forest for the trees. Some obvious truths stand …
The Delaware State Senate passed legislation on May 12th that will preclude “loser pays” fee shifting by bylaw or charter provision—sometimes. The Delaware House is expected to act sometime in June. But the pending legislation only bars such fee-shifting …
A watershed moment is coming for shareholder activism and corporate governance generally, as the proxy contest brought by Trian Management Fund, seeking effectively to break up DuPont, enters its final stages (with the vote being less than a month away). …
Since the Corporation Law Council of the Delaware State Bar Association announced earlier this month that it was recommending statutory amendments to prohibit “loser pays” fee shifting bylaws and charter provisions (and thus overrule the Delaware Supreme Court’s 2014 decision …