Podcasts from this year’s AALS conference are now available. Click here for the Business Associations panel on the Disney case. Recall that Justice Jacobs from the Delaware Supreme Court (author of the Delaware Supreme Court opinion in the case) participated in addition to many heavy-hitting corporate law academics (see below).
Here’s the blurb from the program brochure on the panel:
Dimensions of Disney: The Evolution of Corporate Law and Corporate Governance
Moderator: Deborah A. De Mott, Duke University School of Law
Speakers: Robert Charles Clark, Harvard Law School
Franklin Gevurtz, University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law
Jeffrey N. Gordon, Columbia University School of Law
Darian M. Ibrahim, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
Jack B. Jacobs, Judge, Delaware Supreme Court, Wilmington, Delaware
Renee M. Jones, Boston College Law School
Hillary A. Sale, University of Iowa College of Law
Eric L. Talley, University of California, Berkeley School of Law
Robert B. Thompson, Vanderbilt University Law SchoolOne or more presenters were selected from a call for papers.
In re The Walt Disney Company Derivative Litigation is a long-running and closely-watched case that raises many significant questions concerning the role of law in connection with the governance of large public corporations. These include executive compensation practices, the significance of reputational constraints on the conduct of directors and officers, and relationships between senior management and boards of directors. Disney also provides a concrete context for examining comparative institutional questions, such as the relative roles of markets, courts, shareholder voting, private litigation, securities litigation, and stock exchanges in shaping governance practices. The doctrinal issues posed by Disney, the character and content of directors’ and officers’ duties, lie at the heart of both corporate law and the coverage of business-associations courses.
This year’s Section meeting will feature panels of speakers who will present papers focused on questions raised both directly and indirectly by the case. A separate panel will focus on the challenges and rewards of “Teaching the Big Case,†i.e., Disney, which over its history has generated a lengthy trial and two opinions each from the Delaware Supreme Court and the Court of Chancery.
