the RACE to the BOTTOM

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Law and Society (Part I)

I just returned from the Law and Society Association's 2012 International Conference in Honolulu.  There were a number of excellent presentations, and I plan on blogging about a few of them over the course of my next few posts.  I want to start with a presentation by Lloyd Drury entitled "The New Governance Model of Publicly-Held Private Equity Firms," wherein Prof. Drury reviewed all the ways in which certain publicy-held private equity firms have effectively rejected traditional corporate governance tools like fiduciary duties and shareholder oversight without sending investors running for the hills.  Obviously, this may be primarily an issue of pricing, but the reason I find the project particularly interesting is because I think it can serve as a great introduction and/or closing to my Corporations class--encouraging my students to question everything corporate law suggests is necessary to facilitate capital formation.  Keep your eyes on Prof. Drury's SSRN page for a draft of the paper.