Symposium on Director Liability

May 31, 2006 10:51 AM

Forum: The Pros and Cons of Director Liability. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu (4 comments total)

In November of 2005, the Harvard Law School's Program on Corporate Governance held a symposium on the personal liability of corporate directors. Participating were a number of prominent scholars, businessmen, regulators, and lawyers, including Bill Lerach, formerly of the now-indicted and soon-to-be defunct Milberg Weiss. Video of the symposium is also available. For other interesting papers on corporate governance, see the Program's archive of working papers.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:51 AM on May 31, 2006

Cool post, thanks. And the best use of video we have seen today.
posted by dios at 11:09 AM on May 31, 2006

From the transcript: For example, one thing I’m seeing is—and I’ve talked to directors every week really—directors are pruning the boards they are willing to serve on. So they will go on the board of a well-established, cautiously managed, establishment company that’s not doing anything very exciting—what we call a cash cow. But, they’re much more reluctant to go on the board of a high-tech, high-flyer with the entrepreneur. Now is that good for our system? Maybe not.

This is, in my opinion, a huge problem. Trustworthy people qualified to serve as Directors can make more money and face less risk by pursuing their own ventures--serving as a Director on a public company, especially one actively making acquisitions, is not lucrative enough to justify the time commitment or risk of litigation.
posted by mullacc at 1:06 PM on May 31, 2006

I must be a geek. Dios got an order of magnitude more posts on his post of the SSRN "Fuck" paper, but this one is so much more interesting. Thanks MB.
posted by caddis at 6:04 PM on May 31, 2006