Corporate governance - Vigil

Leo Strine, Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, the Austin Wakeman Scott Lecturer on Law and a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance, recently issued an essay that is forthcoming in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. The essay, titled Corporate Power Ratchet: The Courts’ Role in Eroding “We the People’s” Ability to Constrain Our Corporate Creations, is available here. The abstract of Chief Justice Strine’s essay summarizes it as follows:

A doctrinal innovation in Delaware law that first appeared a year ago is threatening to mature into a full-on trend: through the tort of “aiding-and-abetting” fiduciary breach, the Delaware courts, accepting the invitation of the stockholder-plaintiffs’ bar, have begun to take on the task of regulating the M&A advisory function of investment banks. In October 2014, the Court of Chancery awarded stockholder plaintiffs $76 million in damages against an investment bank for aiding and abetting breaches of the duty of care by the directors of Rural Metro, an ambulance company that was sold for a 37% premium in 2011 and was bankrupt by the time of trial. The novel theory of the decision was that conflicted bankers dispensed self-interested advice, which left Rural Metro’s directors uninformed and hence induced them to breach their duty of care in approving the sale. Although the directors were not liable for the breach (because they had settled and were exculpated at any rate), the court found that the bankers were.

Proxy access will be a leading issue in the 2016 proxy season, and now is the time to make a plan. We have a detailed deck on these questions, available here, but in a nutshell this is what’s happening:

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP recently released a PowerPoint deck, titled “Recap of the 2015 Proxy Season: What Happened, Lessons Learned and Looking Ahead to 2016.”  The deck (available here) provides an overview of the 2015 proxy season, as well as in-depth analysis regarding key developments, proposals and trends from the proxy season.

October 7, 2015, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the Commission or SEC) entered into a settlement agreement with Blackstone Management Partners L.L.C., Blackstone Management Partners III L.L.C., and Blackstone Management Partners IV L.L.C. (collectively, Blackstone) regarding certain Blackstone fee and expense disclosure practices. Without admitting or denying the Commission’s findings, Blackstone consented to a cease-and-desist order and agreed to pay nearly $40 million to settle the charges consisting of $26,225,203 of disgorgement, $2,686,553 of prejudgment interest, and $10,000,000 of civil money penalties. This action represents a continuing focus by the SEC on fee and expense allocation and disclosure practices of private fund advisers. [1] It serves as a reminder of the need for advisers to private investment funds to review and revise as necessary their compliance and disclosure policies and procedures related to the allocation of fees and expenses.

In a must-read report highlighting the pressures public companies face to meet quarterly guidance, maximize immediate profits and extract value today instead of investing for the future, the Conference Board examines what is driving short-term behavior and outlines what can be done to restore balance. The following specially selected highlights from the report and associated release (omitting tax policy matters discussed in detail in the actual report) support the need for action to curb short-termism and the excesses of shareholder activism that are detrimental to the American economy and society: