Sky Blog
While it is illegal for insiders to trade on material, non-public information, the SEC has created a safe harbor Rule 10b5-1 since October 2000, by allowing insiders to set up trading plans in advance of actual trading.[1] Since these …
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) recently re-proposed an audit standard to amend the form and content requirements for the independent auditor’s report on financial statements.[1] The new proposal retains the pass/fail model present in the existing audit …
EU financial policymakers appear to be once more in a deadlock situation over proposals to limit the sovereign risk exposure of European banks. The strong exposure of some banks in the southern European periphery in their national sovereign’s debt was …
Customers sure love Uber. If you ask them to describe their experience with the ride-share firm, most Uber passengers will gladly tick off a long list of superlatives: Innovative! Economical! Revolutionary!
But a less-flattering picture of Uber has recently surfaced …
Unlike most other countries, the U.S. taxes corporations on earnings generated anywhere in the world. This means that U.S. corporations have a strong tax incentive to renounce their U.S. incorporation and redomicile in a foreign country. Enter the inversion, a …
On May 6, 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Delaware Chancery Court’s ruling that Zale Corporation’s sale to Signet Jewelers withstood scrutiny under the business judgment rule because the transaction was approved by a fully-informed, uncoerced vote of the …
| Rank | Name | School | Citations | Age in 2016 |
| 1 | John Coffee, Jr. | Columbia University | 1470 | 72 |
| 2 | Lucian Bebchuk | Harvard University | 1130 | 61 |
| 3 | Stephen Bainbridge | University of California, Los Angeles | 1010 | 58 |
| 4 | Reinier Kraakman | Harvard University | 820 | 67 |
| 5 |
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 …
In Rule v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company,[1] our client challenged MassMutual’s 2014 Proxy Statement seeking to change its company bylaws. The Proxy told the over 1 million policyholder-owners that the proposed bylaw changes were consistent with the …
On April 21, 2016, the National Credit Union Administration (the NCUA) issued a proposed rule regarding incentive-based compensation paid by certain financial institutions (the Proposed Rule) to implement Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act …
Corporate information that moves stock-market prices has long sat at the center of modern securities regulation in the United States. The Great Depression-era securities laws at the foundation of the field require much mandatory disclosure of this type of information. …
We recently published a paper on CEO compensation and value sharing between executives and shareholders. The paper is available here.
CEO compensation is a controversial subject that evokes considerable debate on whether public company CEOs are paid correctly relative …
A wide body of literature emphasizes that venture capitalists focus on young private companies, generally in high-tech industries. However, contrary to this notion, we find that 29% of the firms that were backed by VCs prior to the IPO received …
In a March 29, 2016 decision,[1] the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Court of Appeals”) held that creditors are preempted from asserting state law constructive fraudulent conveyance claims by virtue of the Bankruptcy Code’s “safe …
U.S. capital market has long been an attractive destination to foreign companies. Cross-listing by foreign firms on U.S. exchanges has been associated with major benefits such as increase in value, easier access to external finance, and lower cost of capital. …
The rise of shareholder activism has become a global phenomenon. Shareholder activists are not only present–as they started–in the US, but also in European and Asian Markets.[1] This situation has generated a vast literature about the desirability (or not) …
One down, three to go: SEC rulemaking is heating up.
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized business conduct standards for security-based swap dealers (SBSDs).[1] The completion of this rule by the SEC is significant because few …
Corporate directors inevitably must make real-time decisions on complex and nuanced matters that impact not only the company, but also the company’s various stakeholders—e.g., shareholders, creditors, and employees. The pressure cooker that often is the corporate boardroom is not for …
On Monday, LendingClub Corp., a leader in the growing online lending space, announced the surprise resignation of its founder and CEO, Renaud Laplanche. Laplanche resigned in response to a board investigation that revealed a number of internal control failures, including …
General partnerships are a puzzling form of business in the modern world. A well-established business form with a deep history and sophisticated uniform laws, the general partnership finds itself in a strange position today: Virtually nobody would be well …