The board of directors of a public company is only responsible for a relatively few of the almost infinite number of decisions that are made at a public company over any period of time. Yet, when a corporate board does make a decision, for example, the appointment of a chief executive officer or...

It has been over seven years since the public was first made aware that Enron (or the quot;Companyquot;) was a troubled firm, ultimately doomed to bankruptcy and much litigation, both civil and criminal. Yet, the Enron debacle continues to fascinate researchers and the general population alike....

Historically, the SEC has allowed public companies to exclude from their proxy materials shareholder proposals for the nomination of directors by shareholders. This rule has allowed the nomination of directors to remain under the control of the board of directors and its nominating committee....

Please find attached the slides I presented at the George A. Leet Symposium on Nov. 6, 2020. I am going to be revising my white paper, "The Conflict between Blackrock's Shareholder Activism and ERISA's Fiduciary Duties" based on these slides. This revised version will then be published in the...

To combat the “proactive” agency costs of agency capitalism, this Article proposes that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “Commission”), in whatever form it deems appropriate, require mutual fund advisers to disclose, under the Proxy Voting Rule, their...

Numerous empirical studies have shown that hedge fund activism has led to enhanced returns to investors and increased firm performance. Nevertheless, leading figures in the corporate governance world have taken issue with these studies and have argued that hedge fund activism leads to long-term...

Offensive shareholder activism (more commonly known as hedge fund activism) can be understood as a corrective mechanism in the governance of a public company. The legitimacy of offensive shareholder activism as a corrective mechanism is based on numerous empirical studies that have found this...

Under an Arrowian framework, centralized authority and management provides for optimal decision making in large organizations. However, Kenneth Arrow also recognized that other elements within the organization, beyond the central authority, occasionally may have superior information or...

For many years, the default rules of corporate and securities law have provided the board of directors (Board) with exclusive authority to decide whether shareholder proposals on proxy access, the ability of certain privileged shareholders to have their own slate of director nominees included in...