Wall Street and Vine in the WSJ
Today’s WSJ covers Hollywood’s treatment of business. And so, of course, they went to the Source (link added): Hollywood has been famously left-leaning for decades, even as it teemed with shrewd business operators. Larry Ribstein, a professor of law at the University of Illinois who wrote a paper called “Wall Street and Vine” about the ... Wall Street and Vine in the WSJ
Manifesto
Michigan Avenue, Chicago, 10/8/11.
St. Steve
At the Apple store on Michigan Avenue.
Law as a Byproduct in Munich
I’m off to the International conference on “Regulatory Competition in Contract Law and Dispute Resolution” at Ludwig-Maximilians-University’s Center for Advanced Studies in Munich. I’m joining an otherwise illustrious group (here’s the program) to present my and Kobayashi’s Law as a Byproduct. Blogging may be light for the next week (but eating and drinking may be ... Law as a Byproduct in Munich
The UK deregulates business structures for law firms
The Law Blog notes that the UK’s Legal Services Act goes into effect today. When all the regulatory structures are set up, lawyers will be able to practice in “Alternative Business Structures” such as publicly traded law firms and supermarkets. According to The Lawyer, the law firm Everyman Legal says it will be “first in ... The UK deregulates business structures for law firms
Is there a Steve Jobs of government?
No, at least not in the U.S. And this is a good thing, rather than a reflection on the quality of people who enter the two fields of business and government. In business, investors want to delegate power to executives, especially to imaginative executives like Steve Jobs. Letting investors do this entails potential costs. But ... Is there a Steve Jobs of government?
The cash hoarding problem and some solutions
As I discussed last May, corporations are hoarding cash. According to today’s WSJ, they’re still hoarding cash. Mira Ganor writes, in Agency Costs in the Era of Economic Crisis, that it could be about CEO compensation. Here’s the abstract: This Article reports results of an empirical study that suggests that the current economic crisis has ... The cash hoarding problem and some solutions
Illinois Corporate Colloquium: Choi on SEC backdating investigations
Yesterday at the Illinois Corporate Colloquium Steve Choi presented his paper (with Pritchard and Weichman), Scandal Enforcement at the SEC: Salience and the Arc of the Option Backdating Investigations. Here’s the abstract: We study the impact of scandal-driven media scrutiny on the SEC’s allocation of enforcement resources. We focus on the SEC’s investigations of option ... Illinois Corporate Colloquium: Choi on SEC backdating investigations
Debating the business judgment rule
Alison Frankel gripes about a NJ judge’s ruling throwing out a shareholders’ derivative suit seeking to hold the J & J board accountable for problems concerning the company’s Rispardal drug. Frankel thinks the bad faith standard the court applied is not high enough. Ted Frank responds that the fact that the company had settled criminal ... Debating the business judgment rule
The uncorporation and energy infrastructure
My paper, Energy Infrastructure Investment and the Rise of the Uncorporation has been published in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. It includes a useful summary of my views of uncorporations applied to larger firms. As of now it’s behind a pay wall. Here’s the abstract: While most large U.S. businesses have long ... The uncorporation and energy infrastructure
Ideas for growth
NASDAQ’s Bob Greifeld writes in the WSJ: According to the Small Business Association, small businesses accounted for 64% of the 15 million net new jobs created from 1993 through 2008. In 2010, only 51% of jobs in the U.S. were created by small businesses. In the 1990s, initial public offerings by smaller companies (those raising ... Ideas for growth
Litigation funding grows
Looking for something in the market that’s growing instead of shrinking? Try litigation. The WSJ surveys the current landscape of litigation funding, discussing three new U.S. entrants: BlackRobe Capital Partners LLC, with John P.”Sean” Coffey, formerly of Bernstein Litowitz and 2010 Democratic nominee for NY AG; Fulbrook Management LLC, and Bentham Capital LLC. The article ... Litigation funding grows
