Sky Blog
Regulators, investors, and academics generally agree on the main goal of strong SEC oversight: to improve financial reporting, which helps markets allocate capital and promotes market efficiency. But this goal prompts a question that matters for corporate governance and long-run …
Any state that aspires to be a serious contender in the competition for corporate charters must have a specialized corporate law court. Delaware leads this competition in part because of its Court of Chancery, which has produced an exceptional body …
American corporations have undergone a gradual but significant transformation. Founding chief executive officers (“founder-CEOs”) and activist hedge funds increasingly dominate their companies despite owning well short of a majority of shares. Founder-CEOs wield control through their personal brands or dual-class …
On September 2, 2025, U.S. Representative Zachary Nunn sent a letter to the chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) highlighting concerns over ownership transparency of certain bitcoin mining firms and suppliers connected to China. …
Advocates of blockchain technology promised that it would revolutionize governance through strong commitments, transparency, and “trustlessness” – the absence of any need to trust a bank or other intermediary. In a recent paper, I argue that these promises have largely …
For more than a decade, the European Union has styled itself as the custodian of digital civilization. If Silicon Valley built the engines, and Shenzhen perfected the replication, Brussels has written the rulebook. After the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Sidney Weinberg and his son John Weinberg both served as longstanding chairmen of Goldman Sachs. Recently, John’s 1948 Princeton undergraduate thesis came to light. Like a 1933 memorandum and a 1949 speech by Sidney, it addressed a fundamental issue: What …
Proxy advisers play a pivotal role in corporate governance by providing institutional investors with recommendations on how to vote at shareholder meetings. These firms influence key corporate decisions, including the election of directors, executive compensation, and governance policies, thereby exerting …
In an era of heightened political uncertainty – from gridlock in Washington to changes within the European Union – political risk has become a top concern for many boards of directors. Firms often cultivate political connections to mitigate these risks …
When a team of researchers asked an artificial intelligence system to design a railway network that minimized the risk of train collisions, the AI delivered a surprising solution: Halt all trains entirely. No motion, no crashes. A perfect safety record, …
In August 2024, Delaware enacted what are widely considered the most significant and controversial amendments to the state’s corporate statute in at least a generation. Principally, those amendments exalt freedom of contract over what was, in the words of the …
Pay-for-performance is often championed as a possible solution to agency problems, aligning managers’ incentives with shareholder interests. But what happens when solving one agency problem creates another – between the firm and society?
In a recent paper, we develop a …
Founders and early investors increasingly maintain control of companies while holding small economic stakes in them – raising fundamental questions about how Delaware courts can enforce accountability in corporate governance. In a new working paper, I challenge the courts’ …
In a recent article, I analyze the function of shareholder ratification in corporate governance and argue that understanding this function is critical to both refining shareholder-based cleansing mechanisms and appreciating their inherent limitations. Although I focus on Corwin cleansing in …
Fear that more companies might follow Tesla and reincorporate outside Delaware has been roiling the corporate world, driven by recent court decisions that impose relatively stringent controls on controlling shareholders. In response, Delaware’s legislature is considering Senate Bill 21 (SB …
In a new article, we challenge one of corporate law’s most persistent narratives: the concept of “shareholder democracy.” With people on opposing sides of recent high-profile battles at companies like Disney, Tesla, and Exxon invoking “shareholder democracy” to support their …
We are living in a particularly polarized era, and corporate governance is no exception. The divisions have threatened to spill over to Delaware, the preferred jurisdiction for incorporation in the United States, with several high-profile cases calling the state’s neutrality …
The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed a recent district court order that preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). While a separate district court ruling staying the effectiveness of the CTA’s beneficial ownership interest reporting rule (Reporting Rule) …