People
Lucian Bebchuk
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Where Majority Doesn’t Rule
May 12, 2014
At some companies, shareholders lose even when they win. Vornado Realty Trustis a case in point. At every annual meeting since 2007, investors have approved a resolution asking the company to require that the board win a majority of the vote to get re-elected. For the past four years, shareholders in the U.S. real-estate investment trust also have backed a measure asking that each board member be required to stand for election every year. Vornado has refused to implement either proposal...Majority-vote requirements are now common, and the Shareholder Rights Project run by Harvard law professor Lucian Bebchuk has helped get 121 companies to commit to annual elections since 2011.
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How to Outsmart Activist Investors
May 1, 2014
…Since the start of the 21st century, a new breed of shareholder—the activist hedge fund—has frequently played a decisive role in interactions between corporations and markets...A major recent study by Lucian Bebchuk, Alon Brav, and Wei Jiang of activist investments from 1994 through 2007 also found five-year improvements in the operating performance of targeted companies.
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Bebchuk, Cohen, and Wang win academic award
July 25, 2013
In an award ceremony held in New York City last month, the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRCi) announced the winners of its the 2013 prize competition. The academic award went to Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. '80 S.J.D. 84, HLS Senior Fellow and Tel-Aviv University Professor Alma Cohen, and Harvard Business School Professor Charles Wang. The trio received the award for their study, "Learning and the Disappearing Association between Governance and Returns," which was published last month by the Journal of Financial Economics.
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HLS Faculty assess the week’s legal news
July 15, 2013
In a week of many developments in the world of law, Harvard Law School faculty were online, in print, and on-the-air offering analyses and opinions.
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In a week of many developments in the world of law, Harvard Law School faculty were online, in print, and on-the-air offering analyses and opinions.
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“The Compensation Game” Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and Rakesh Khurana, professor at Harvard Business School Forbes India April 8, 2013 “Reports about the high pay of star athletes are often greeted with awe and approval rather than outrage. The rise of executive pay, its defenders claim, is no more problematic than the fact that, say, Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez is paid much more than earlier stars like Ted Williams.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission recently indicated in an entry in the Office of Management and Budget’s Unified Agenda that it plans to issue by April 2013 a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on requiring public companies to disclose their spending on politics. The adoption of such a rule was urged in a rulemaking petition submitted by a committee of ten law professors co-chaired by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and by a record number of supporting comments subsequently filed with the SEC.
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Briefs: Some memorable moments, milestones and a Miró
October 1, 2012
In October 1962, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Harvard Law School on “The Future of Integration.” It was six months before he would be imprisoned in a Birmingham jail, 10 months before the March on Washington, almost two years before the signing of the Civil Rights Act and almost six years before his assassination. “It may be that the law cannot make a man love me,” he said, “but it can keep him from lynching me.”
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Eight Harvard Law School faculty members were recently ranked among the top 100 corporate governance scholars in the world, in all corporate areas, including management, law, economics, and finance. Included on the American Academy of Management’s list of 100 “high-impact scholars” were HLS Professors Lucian Bebchuk, John Coates, Reinier Kraakman, Mark Roe '75, Steven Shavell and Cass Sunstein '78. Former HLS Dean and current Visiting Professor Elena Kagan '86 and HLS Lecturer on Law Leo Strine also were featured on the list.
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Bebchuk on shareholder disclosures
August 17, 2012
Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. '80 S.J.D. '84 published an op-ed in the New York Times' DealBook on Aug. 15 entitled, “Don’t Discourage Outside Shareholders.” The op-ed is in response to a proposed rule being considered by the Securities and Exchange Commission that narrows the timeframe in which shareholders must disclose when they hold five percent or more of a company’s holdings.
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Harvard Law School Media Roundup: From Gun Control to the Roberts’s Court to the Arab Spring
July 26, 2012
Over the past week, a number of HLS faculty members shared their viewpoints on events in the news. Here are some excerpts.
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Bebchuk named among most influential people in finance
July 17, 2012
Professor Lucian Bebchuk has been named as one of the 100 most influential people in finance by Treasury & Risk magazine. The list prepared by the magazine puts together individuals who had significant impact on the world of finance this year.
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Faculty Viewpoints: After Citizens United
July 1, 2012
The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision allowed unlimited political expenditures by corporations and unions, which have been used to help fund campaign commercials that have flooded the airwaves during this election season. In recent writings, several Harvard Law faculty members have explored how Citizens United affects a spectrum of stakeholders, including shareholders, corporations, unions and voters.
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In the April 19 edition of The New York Times’ DealBook, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk defends the of work of his Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) at HLS in light of a recent memo criticizing the project. The SRP is a clinical program that assists public pension funds and charitable organizations in improving corporate governance at publicly traded companies.
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A new HLS clinic, in its first year of operation, has already contributed to significant governance reforms in numerous S&P 500 companies. The Harvard Law School Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) is a clinical program at Harvard Law School through which faculty and students assist public pension funds and charitable organizations to improve corporate governance at publicly traded companies in which they are shareowners.
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On World Bank blog, Bebchuk debates executive compensation
February 17, 2012
In an online forum, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk engaged in a debate with Ohio State University Professor Rene Stulz regarding the role executive compensations played in the financial crisis.
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Bebchuk testifies before Senate Banking committee
February 15, 2012
On Feb. 15, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection at a hearing entitled “Pay for Performance: Incentive Compensation at Large Financial Institutions.”
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Bebchuk, Shavell, Kaplow, Fried, and Cohen Make SSRN’s Top Ten List
January 13, 2012
Harvard Law School’s faculty and fellows earned the top ranking for the total number of citations of their work on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), according to cumulative statistics released for 2011. HLS faculty members captured five out of the top 10 slots – including the number one slot – among law school faculty in all legal fields.
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Hearsay: Faculty short takes
December 6, 2011
“Politics and Corporate Money” Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 Project Syndicate Sept. 20, 2010 “A recent decision issued by the United States Supreme Court expanded the freedom of corporations to spend money on political campaigns and candidates. … This raises well-known questions about democracy and private power, but another important question is often overlooked: who should decide for a publicly traded corporation whether to spend funds on politics, how much, and to what ends?
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Bebchuk recognized for excellence in corporate governance
September 23, 2011
At the 2011 annual meeting of the International Corporate Governance Network held in Paris, Professor Lucian Bebchuk was awarded an ICGN award for excellence in corporate governance. ICGN awards are given annually in recognition of “exceptional achievements in the corporate governance field.”
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Committee co-chaired by Bebchuk submits SEC rulemaking petition on political spending
August 9, 2011
The Committee on Disclosure of Corporate Political Spending, co-chaired by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and Robert J. Jackson, Jr. ’05, associate professor at Columbia Law School, submitted a rulemaking petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The petition urges the commission to develop rules to require public companies to disclose to shareholders the use of corporate resources for political activities.