It’s a question almost as old as the stock market: should public corporations be able to use a dual-class share structure that preserves a key shareholder’s influence. A number of well-known companies including Ford Motor Company, Facebook and News Corp. maintain dual-class structures that grant outsized voting power to one person or a small number…
Month: March 2018
The XFL: A Single Entity on its Second Life
In January, Vince McMahon, Chairman and CEO of the popular World Wrestling Entertainment, announced that he would be recreating the XFL, a professional football league that will begin competing during the offseason of the National Football League (NFL) in 2020.1 This will be McMahon’s second crack at the XFL; his first attempt, in 2001, collapsed…
A Tasty Tax Exclusion for Silicon Valley Employees
In 1999, Google’s forty employees hosted a cook off to see who would be the future first chef of their company’s kitchen.1 After sampling 25 different cooks, the office ultimately named Charlie Ayers the winner of the competition after trying his eclectic and worldly selection.2 Google’s early employees and Ayers could hardly imagine the gourmet…
Lawsuits Against Pfizer Dismissed
Pfizer Inc. is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and is one of the thirty companies used to calculate the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In a class action, over one thousand lawsuits have been filed against Pfizer, claiming that certain testosterone replacement drugs increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.1 Testosterone replacement…
Fujifilm Suit; Activist Hedge Fund Concerns
In early February, activist hedge fund investor Darwin Deason filed a lawsuit against the well-known company Xerox1 The basis of the lawsuit stems from Xerox’s proposed merger with Fujifilm, which would lead to the creation of a new entity called, Fuji Xerox, and give Fujifilm a 50.1% stake in the created entity.2. Deason filed the…
Illegal Motion: The Breach of Contract Lawsuit over the Relocation of the Los Angeles Rams
When Stan Kroenke bought a majority share of the St. Louis Rams in 2010, he did so while making an assurance that he was going to do everything he could to keep the Rams in St. Louis.1 And yet, less than six years after taking control, Kroenke and the Rams got league approval to move…
Cryptocurrency Regulation and Valuation
In January 2018, the justice minister of South Korea announced that the country would consider banning cryptocurrency exchanges amid concerns regarding rampant speculation driving the prices of several virtual currencies, including bitcoin, sky high.1 The news led to an extreme worldwide drop in the price of bitcoin, as investors tried to gauge the uncertainty of…
PROMESA and Puerto Rico’s Fiduciary Duties
On May 3, 2017, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (“PROMESA”).1 Puerto Rico is now in the unique position of being the first U.S. territory to ever declare bankruptcy. Local governments have been bankrupt before with Detroit being a notable recent example.2 In fact,…