Corporate Law – Page 15 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Wall Street Collapse = ERISA Stock Drop Litigation

Post author:Paul M. Secunda
Post published:September 22, 2008
Post category:Corporate Law Federal Civil Litigation Labor & Employment Law

Not a surprising development at all. From BNA Daily Labor Report (subscription required):

As several heavy hitters in the financial world have come under pressure or have gone bankrupt in the past couple of months because of the subprime mortgage and lending crisis that has battered investment firms and banks, the employer “stock drop” cases that proliferated in the post-Enron Corp. and post-WorldCom Inc. age are on the rise.

Although the Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims raised in these stock drop cases have not been identical, there are two central claims that arise in these cases. The first claim typically raised is that the plan fiduciaries breached their duties by offering company stock as a plan investment option when the stock was an imprudent or unwise investment. The second claim focuses on the disclosure obligations of the plan fiduciaries and often alleges that the fiduciaries breached their duties by not telling plan participants of financial matters of the plan sponsor that made the sponsor’s stock an imprudent investment.

Addressing the Short-Termer Problem in Corporate Governance

Post author:Edward A. Fallone
Post published:September 19, 2008
Post category:Corporate Law Legal Scholarship Speakers at Marquette

Continuing our faculty workshop series, Nadelle Grossman presented a work in progress earlier this week entitled “Clarifying the Long-Term Nature of Director and Shareholder Fiduciary Duties.” Her presentation examined the various factors that have magnified the influence of short-term institutional shareholders, such as hedge funds and activist investors, over the decisions of corporate management. These factors include the way the market punishes firms that fail to meet their quarterly earnings targets, the incentives of money managers to maximize their own fees by boosting the share price of their holdings, and the increasing effectiveness of the shareholder franchise. Professor Grossman argued that the increasing influence of the “short-termers” has impaired management’s ability to set a long-term strategy for the corporation. Her thesis is that the fiduciary duties of directors and institutional shareholders should be re-examined in order to promote the adoption of business strategies with longer time frames.

I.P. Licensing After Quanta Computer: A Podcast

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 4, 2008
Post category:Corporate Law Intellectual Property Law

My colleagues Nadelle Grossman and Kali Murray have recently prepared this informative podcast regarding the implications for I.P. licensing of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Quanta Computer, Inc., v. LG Electronics, 128 S.Ct. 2109, 170 L.Ed. 2d 996, 76 USLW 4375 (June 9, 2008). I understand that this will be the first in an occasional series of podcasts on current issues in intellectual property prepared by Marquette’s I.P. professors. This is an exciting new venture, and I look forward to hearing their future productions.