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Legality
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- July 2005 (Revised August 2006)
- Background Note
Bribery in Business: A Legal Perspective
By: Lynn S. Paine and Christopher Bruner
Provides a brief overview of the concept of bribery and the principal rationales prompting restrictions on such conduct. Also, reviews some of the most important U.S. and international laws prohibiting various forms of bribery. View Details
- April–May 2005
- Article
Markets for Partially-Contractible Knowledge: Bootstrapping Versus Bundling
By: James J Anton and Dennis A. Yao
We discuss how a seller can appropriate rents when selling knowledge that lacks legal property rights by solving either an expropriation or a valuation problem and then analyze how seller rents increase when a portion of the intellectual property (IP) can be protected.... View Details
- Article
Does Legal Enforcement Affect Financial Transactions?: The Contractual Channel in Private Equity
By: Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar
- 2005
- Article
Early Decisions: A Regulatory Framework
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We describe a regulatory framework that helps consumers who have difficulty sticking to their own long-run plans. Early Decision regulations help long-run preferences prevail by allowing consumers to partially commit to their long-run goals, making it harder for a... View Details
- November 2004 (Revised February 2006)
- Background Note
Note on Insider Trading Liability
By: Lynn S. Paine and Christopher Bruner
Provides a general description and overview of U.S. law on insider trading, including the basic theories of liability, the responsibilities of securities firm managers to prevent and detect insider trading, and the potential penalties for insider trading. A rewritten... View Details
- November 2004 (Revised July 2005)
- Case
Messier's Reign at Vivendi Universal
By: Rakesh Khurana, Vincent Dessain and Daniela Beyersdorfer
Focuses on a crisis in the board at Vivendi. Highlights the difficulties that arise when dramatic pressure from outside the boardroom affects boardroom dynamics. In this case, there are two events. The first is an unexpectedly large financial loss and a pending cash... View Details
- September 2004 (Revised April 2005)
- Background Note
Note on Individual and Corporate Liability
By: Lynn S. Paine
Answers some of the most common questions managers ask about potential corporate and individual liability for corporate misconduct under U.S. law. Describes a few general principles of liability that managers should be aware of. A rewritten version of an earlier note. View Details
- August 2004 (Revised June 2008)
- Case
Debating the Expropriation of Mexican Oil
By: Geoffrey G. Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani
In 1938, the Mexican government expropriated the assets of foreign oil companies. Explores the legal and moral arguments in favor of and against expropriation. View Details
- June 2004 (Revised January 2005)
- Background Note
Principals, Agents, and Partners
By: Arthur I Segel, Armen Panossian and Jeff Mandelbaum
The establishment of the principal-agent relationship, the duties owed by the agent to the principal, and the principal's liability for illegal actions or representations made by the agent are all examined. Also covers the creation of partnerships and the duties of... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised April 2005)
- Background Note
Intellectual Property and Strategy
By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier
Explores the role of intellectual property in firms' strategies. Explains the legal and strategic differences between patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets and explores the multiple ways firms use these different legal protections to gain competitive... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Music Downloads
By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier
Examines the competition between competing music formats. In the '90s, the MP3 format challenged the traditional means of music distribution by allowing for storage of near CD-quality recordings at 1/10th of their previous size. The threat to traditional distribution... View Details
- May 2004
- Article
Disclosure Practices of Foreign Companies Interacting with U.S. Markets
We analyze the disclosure practices of companies as a function of their interaction with the U.S. markets for a group of 794 firms from 24 countries in Asia-Pacific and Europe. Our analysis uses the Transparency and Disclosure scores developed recently by Standard &... View Details
- Article
Little Patents and Big Secrets: Managing Intellectual Property
By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao
Exploitation of an innovation commonly requires some disclosure of enabling knowledge (e.g., to obtain a patent or induce complementary investment). When property rights offer only limited protection, the value of the disclosure is offset by the increased threat of... View Details
Keywords: Patents; Management; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge; Rights; Value; Information; Corporate Disclosure
- February 2004
- Case
New HP, The: The Clean Room and Beyond
By: Leslie A. Perlow and Elizabeth Kind
When the $19 billion merger of Silicon Valley legend Hewlett-Packard and Houston-based PC giant Compaq Computer Corp. legally closed on May 3, 2002, both companies had already devoted an immense amount of time preparing for the challenges that lay ahead. Chief among... View Details
- February 2004
- Case
Czech Mate: CME and Vladimir Zelezny (A)
By: Mihir A. Desai, Alberto Moel and Kathleen Luchs
This case examines how insiders can expropriate value from shareholders in emerging markets when property rights are ill-defined. As such, it provides a platform for considering how institutions and legal rules impact financing patterns and economic outcomes. CME,... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
Redesigning Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanisms
By: Mihir A. Desai, Christina Pham, Julia Stevens and Kathleen Luchs
How should the debt of sovereign countries be restructured when countries approach default? Anne O. Krueger of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is proposing a new approach to sovereign defaults: the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM). The SDRM would... View Details
- January 2004
- Case
Bob Holgrom and the Buyout of the Carlson Division
By: Thomas R. Piper
The head of the Carlson Division stands to benefit substantially in financial terms if a private equity firm wins the bid for the division. The division is in the early stages of a performance turnaround, with only three quarters of profit improvement and no audited... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised September 2004)
- Background Note
Confidentiality in Settlement Negotiations: Ethics & Law
By: Michael A. Wheeler, Dana Nelson and Gillian Morris
Legal policy has a long history of protecting confidentiality of negotiations that are designed to produce settlement. However, within the past several decades there has been a significant push toward openness. Compelling arguments support confidentiality: It helps... View Details
- December 2003 (Revised November 2015)
- Background Note
The Fiduciary Relationship: A Legal Perspective
By: Lynn Sharp Paine
Discusses the concept of a fiduciary, as developed in the Anglo-American common law tradition, and outlines the principal differences between the legal standard applied to fiduciaries compared to ordinary arms'-length contractors. View Details