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Center for Law and Economic Studies

Conferences / Symposiums / Roundtables

April 26, 2013 - Symposium

Changes in Ownership:  Beyond the Berle-Means Paradigm

Symposium hosted by the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership and Columbia Law School

The goal of the symposium was to bring together principals, lawyers, and economic and legal academics to discuss changing patterns of equity ownership in the United States, which undermine the standard "Berle-Means paradigm," which descriptively identifies a diffuse pattern of ownership separated from control in U.S. public companies.

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April 9, 2013 - Book Lecture/Discussion

Colin Mayer Lecture - Firm Commitment:  Why the Corporation is Failing Us and How to Restore Trust in it

Colin Mayer, Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies, Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, presented his book’s thesis and themes followed by a panel discussion featuring John C. Coffee, Adolph A. Berle Professor of Law; Patrick Bolton, Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business, and Robert A. Jackson, Associate Professor of Law and Milton Handler Fellow. Katharina Pistor, Michael Sovern Professor of Law, the moderator chaired the session.

Hosted by Columbia Law School's Center for Law and Economic Studies; Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership; and Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy

While corporations are the source of our prosperity, they are also the cause of many of our most-pressing global problems. How is the corporation failing us, and what steps should we take to restore trust in it? How can we enter into a new way of thinking about the firm, which not only stops it destroying us but turns it into the means of protecting our environment, addressing social problems, and creating new sources of entrepreneurship and innovation?”

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May 11, 2012 – Conference

Markets and Owners:  Rethinking the SEC's Beneficial Ownership Rules

This conference will be hosted by Columbia's new Project on Investment, Ownership and Control in the Modern Firm. 

The conference will bring together academics, regulators, institutional investors and boardroom participants to consider a pending petition to reform the SEC's rules under Section 13(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which governs the disclosure obligations of holders of significant equity stakes in public companies.  The goal is to help inform the SEC's consideration of possible new rules.

Tentative Agenda

Download and read the agenda

Presentations

Background Materials

Organizers

Jeffrey N. Gordon, Richard Paul Richman Professor of Law, Co-Director, Center for Law and Economic Studies, Columbia School of Law
Robert J. Jackson, Jr., Associate Professor of Law, Columbia School of Law
Ira Millstein, Senior Partner, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, Project Chair

Conference Location

The Offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges
767 Fifth Avenue, at 59th Street
New York, NY

September 23, 2011

Revisiting the Prudent Investor Rule in 2011

Conference registrants click here. (Password Required)

May 20-21, 2011

ALEA 21st Annual Meeting
American Law & Economics Association

2011 Host School - Columbia University School of Law

Meeting

Program / Schedule

November 15, 2010 - Roundtable

Cross-Border Resolution of International Financial Firms

Law professors, economists and policy-makers will discuss,  "Cross-Border Resolution of International Financial Firms."

Discussion Papers -

  1. Regulating Wall Street
     
  2. Report and Recommendations of the Cross-border Bank Resolution Group
     
  3. The Basel Committee's Response to the Financial Crisis:  Report to the G20
     
  4. Two Cheers for Territoriality:  An Essay on International Bank Insolvency Law, by Tomas C. Baxter, Jr., Joyce M. Hansen, and Joseph H. Sommer
     
  5. A Look at Transnational Insolvencies and Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, by Evelyn H. Biery, Jason L. Boland and John D. Cornwell
     
  6. The Retrogressive Flaw of Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code:  A Lesson From Maritime law, by John J. Chung
     
  7. Christine M. Cumming:  Early Intervention and Resolution
     
  8. Resolving Troubled Systemically Important Cross-Border Financial Institutions:  Is a New Corporate Organizational Form Required? by Christine Cumming and Robert A. Eisenbeis
     
  9. Communication from The Commission to the European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic and Social Committee, The Committee of the Regions and The European Central Bank
     
  10. A Safer world Financial System:  Improving the Resolution of Systemic Institutions
     
  11. Resolution Authority:  Alternative Approaches, by Jeffrey N. Gordon
     
  12. Paul Tucker:  Developing an EU Cross-Border Crisis Management Framework, by Paul Tucker
     
  13. Leaders at G-20 to Back Core of U.S. Bank Rules
     
  14. Reducing the Moral Hazard Posed by Systemically Important Financial Institutions

Attendance by invitation only.

March 5-6, 2010 - Conference

The Financial Crisis: Can We Prevent a Recurrence?

The focus of this conference is to bring together a group of knowledgeable academics, regulators and industry participants to work on recognizing and containing systemic risk issues and various ways of limiting this risk, during the conference.

Attendance by invitation only.

Click here to visit the conference site

June 23, 2009 – Conference

Risk Principles for Fund Directors

Sponsored by the Mutual Fund Directors Forum and Columbia Law School

Recent market events have illustrated vividly that the risk oversight function of fund boards has never been more complex and critical than it is today.  The Forum, in conjunction with Professor Harvey J. Goldschmid and Columbia Law School presented a single day course designed to help provide directors with the tools and references they need to understand and assess risk, and to oversee its management by others.

Professor Goldschmid moderated the panels of independent directors, risk experts, CCOs, and fund professionals who discussed lessons the recent crisis has taught us about risk, and how directors can effectively oversee the development of risk conscious culture both in the boardroom and among their funds' various services providers.

November 14, 2008 – Roundtable

Financial Institutions and Private Equity: Creating Possibilities in Uncertain Times

6th Annual Deals Roundtable

Sponsored by        

The Charles E. Gerber Transactional Studies Program at the Law School

The Private Equity Program at the Business School

Visit the Roundtable at:

 http://www.law.columbia.edu/center_program/deals/conferences/equity

October 31-November 1, 2008 – Conference

Business Law and Innovation

Visit the Business Law and Innovation Project web site.

May 16-17, 2008

ALEA 18th Annual Meeting

Host School -  Columbia University School of Law

2008 Meeting

December 19, 2007

Cross Border Securities Market Mergers
Trends, Effects and Development of Appropriate Regulatory Policies

This one day conference is sponsored by the Center for Law and Economic Studies, at the Columbia Law School, and the Program for the Law and Economics of Capital Markets, a joint project of the Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School.  It will explore the forces driving cross border securities market merger activity, its implications for the U.S. and world economies, and the challenges it poses for capital market regulation. 

Attendance by invitation only.

Conference registrants click here. (Password Required)

November 8, 2007

Mutual Fund Conference

Funds' Use of Derivatives

The Mutual Fund Directors Forum and Columbia Law School jointly presented this conference meetng.

Program Overview -
Harvey Goldschmid, professor of law at Columbia Law School and former SEC Commissioner, facilitated discussions by fund industry experts on funds' use of derivative instruments.

The panels looked into the risk, compliance, and operational issues that face independent mutual fund directors as they oversee their funds' derivatives investment strategy.

Topics of Discussion -

  • Understanding Deriatives and How Funds Use Them
  • Risks Associated with Derivatives
  • Compliance and Disclosure Issues
  • Valuation and Accounting Isues Associated with Derivatives
  • Board Responsibilities for Oversight
December 7, 2007- Conference

75th Anniversary  Berle-Means Revisited:  A 21st Century Reconsideration of The Modern Corporation and Private Property

The Columbia Law School marks the 75th Anniversary of the influential Berle-Means Book The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolph A. Berle (the late Columbia Law School Professor) and Gardiner Means, (an economist), in a conference being hosted by Columbia Law School's Center for Corporate Governance and the Center for Law and Economic Studies.

This groundbreaking book on business law is probably the most influential book published in corporate law.  This conference will bring together some of the top authorities in corporate law. These proceedings are by invitation only.

Conference registrants click here. (Password Required)

January 25, 2007

Mutual Funds Conference
Securities Lending:  The Board's Role

Co-sponsored by the Mutual Fund Directors Forum and Columbia Law School

This conference meeting looked at:

  • Understanding Securities Lending - How the Markets Work
  • Compliance and Operational Issues
  • Role of the Board in Monitoring Compliance
  • Performance Monitoring and Effective Risk Management
  • Evaluating and Diferentiatng Betwee  the Various Routes to Markets for Securities Lending Programs
November 17, 2006

Mel Fest ConferenceThe Structure of the Corporation:
A Legal Analysis

The Columbia Center for Law and Economic Studies and the Center on Corporate Governance is sponsoring a conference which is a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the publication of Mel Eisenberg's "The Structure of the Corporation: A Legal Analysis," which introduced the concept of the "monitoring Board" into the corporate law lexicon and which had a shaping role in the contemporary conception of corporate governance. Invitation/Registration required.

Conference registrants click here. (Password Required)

October 27, 2006 - Roundtable

Hedge Funds Roundtable
Hedge Funds, Creditor Control, and Restructuring

The Transactional Studies Program at Columbia Law School will host its fourth Deals Roundtable, entitled "Hedge Funds, Creditor Control, and Restructuring," on Friday, October 27, 2006, from 12:00 p.m. to 5:45 p.m., including lunch, to be held at Columbia Law School, 435 West 116th Street (116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue). A reception for all speakers, panelists, and attendees will immediately follow. The Round­­table is designed to bring together prominent academics, practitioners, and policymakers for intensive discussions of important contemporary issues.

The past 15 years have seen dramatic changes in the restructuring process. The players have changed: distressed debt funds now play a central role in all large bankruptcies. The dynamics have changed: debtor-control was the byword of the 1980s; today, creditors dominate the restructuring process through pre-petition credit facilities, debtor-in-possession financing, and other devices. And the outcomes have changed as well: firms in bankruptcy today are more highly leveraged and more likely to be sold off than reorganized.

This Roundtable will focus on these recent developments in the restructuring process, in particular the impact of changes in players and processes on distressed and bankrupt firms. Harvey Miller, a Vice-Chairman at Greenhill & Co., will provide the luncheon address. The Roundtable will include paper presentations by Edward Morrison, Columbia Law School, and Edward Altman, New York University Stern School of Business, and a panel discussion on hedge funds and the reorganization process

Conference registrants click here. (Password Required)

September 29, 2006 - Symposium

Gatekeepers Today:  The Professions After The Reforms

The scandals are over (maybe, maybe not?).  Sarbanes-Oxley is the law, and other reforms have been implemented.  But how much has really changed?  The conference panels discussed and debated issues. 

September 15-16, 2006 - Conference

Tort Law and the Modern State

This conference on Tort Law and the Modern State will bring together many of the world's most prominent tort scholars representing a range of perspectives and methodologies including comparative, economic, empirical, historical, institutional, and philosophical analysis. Conference by invitation only.

Conference registrants click here. (Password Required)

Click here to watch the live webcast of the conference. (Webcast will only be broadcasted live during the times of the panel discussions).

April 7-8, 2006 - Conference

The Law and Economics of Contracts

A Conference on the Law and Economics of Contracts, was held on Friday, April 7, and Saturday morning, April 8 at Columbia University. The conference was a joint initiative supported by Columbia's School of Law (through the Center for Law and Economic Studies), Graduate School of Business, School of International and Public Affairs, and the Department of Economics.

The general theme of the conference was "the economics of contacts meets the law and economics of contracts" on the view that analysis of the different starting points and focal questions of the two related inquiries can stimulate further research. Core issues examined included the role of breach and the remedies for breach in shaping contract design, judicial practices of interpretation and the judicial supply of default terms, the role of the adversarial litigation system in shaping contracts, and the bargaining process.

January 19, 2006 - Roundtable

China's Emerging Financial Markets:  Opportunities and Obstacles

This Roundtable focused on China's emerging financial industry, in particular the impact of inbound investment into China and the role of China's legal and institutional infrastructure.

China Roundtable 1-19-06 Agenda.pdf

November 18, 2005 - Conference

Shareholder Democracy:  Its Promises and Perils

Business scandals have provoked a sense of crisis in Corporate America. Increasing shareholder power is a common response - in both the media and new regulation - reflecting the view that corporations are better managed if shareholders play a greater role in controlling corporate excess. But does that answer raise its own set of problems?

This symposium  focused on the growing role of shareholders in managing public corporations, bringing together prominent academics, policymakers, shareholder representatives, executives, corporate lawyers, business leaders, and reporters to explore in depth the idea of "shareholder democracy" and its costs and benefits.

Traditionally, legal scholarship on corporate governance has focused on how corporations deal with the problems of agency costs in public firms. Increasing shareholder power may be an effective way to reduce those costs. That focus has led to the acceptance of a "shareholder primacy" paradigm that presumes that corporations are run most efficiently when they are run in accordance with shareholder desires.

Nevertheless, academics have begun to explore alternatives to the traditional principal-agent approach. Those alternatives reveal how the principal-agent model fails to address other important economic problems in corporations, including important problems that may be worsened by enhancing shareholder power.

The principal-agent model, for example, presumes that shareholders in public firms have a single common interest. Shareholders in public corporations, however, are a diverse group whose interests often conflict depending on whether they are short-term or long-term investors, whether they are diversified, whether they play other roles in the firm (e.g., as employees or creditors), whether they have "social" preferences or purely economic preferences, and whether they have hedged their economic interest through derivatives contracts. Increasing shareholder power heightens the resulting potential for intra-shareholder conflict. A second failing of the principal-agent model is that it overlooks the importance of firm-specific investments made by stakeholder groups like employees and customers, who can become residual claimants in corporations with interests and vulnerabilities that are economically similar to shareholders. Third, the principal-agent model ignores the problems of negative spillover effects from corporate activities on broader society, assuming instead that they can be controlled through contract and government regulation. If not true, then greater shareholder power can lead to more "socially irresponsible" corporate behavior.

The question of whether greater shareholder power benefits or harms public corporations is far more complex and nuance than the current tone of debate suggests.  Participants took a new look at the role of shareholder democracy in the modern corporation.

Nov. 18, 2005 Program.pdf

October 14, 2005 - Roundtable

Deals Roundtable:  Narrowing the Tax Gap

This Roundtable focused on issues related to tax compliance, enforcement, and substantive innovations aimed at improving tax administration.

October 14, 2005 - Agenda.pdf

April 22, 2005 - Conference

Two-Sided Markets

Published in Columbia Business Law Review, Vol. 2005, No. 3, pp.509-55

April 22, 2005 - Conference Program.pdf

April 1,2005 – Roundtable

Gatekeepers and Corporate Governance
First Annual Roundtable

The roundtable focused on the roles and responsibilities of capital markets gatekeepers in light of changing regulations and practices.

March 21, 2005 - Symposium

The Limits of Lawyering: Legal Opinions in Structured Finance

March 21, 2005 - Schwarcz Presentation.pdf

March 21, 2005 - Symposium Program.pdf

October 15, 2004 - Symposium

Executive Compensation

See a summary of the event in attached link.  Publication is forthcoming.

http://www.dkv.columbia.edu/law/w0904/index.html

April 23-24, 2004 - Workshop

Interdisciplinary Workshop on Law, Finance and Political Economy

The April 23-24, 2004 workshop was hosted by Katarina Pistor and Jeffrey N. Gordon, please click here to go to the conference page. (You will need a username and password to access this page)

 

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