Publications

July 2002 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Unilever Superannuation Fund vs. Merrill Lynch, The

By: Andre F. Perold and Joshua Musher

In 2001, the Unilever Superannuation Fund sued Merrill Lynch for damages of 130 million British pounds. Over the period 1977 to 1998, the Unilever Fund had significantly underperformed the benchmark, and its trustees contended that the poor returns resulted from... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Performance Evaluation; Agreements and Arrangements; Customer Relationship Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Asset Management; Risk Management; Legal Liability; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

22 Dec 2009
First Look

First Look: Dec. 22

liabilities to external "shocks." At the national level, the sectors of an economy are viewed as interconnected portfolios of assets, liabilities, and guarantees—some explicit and others implicit. Traditional approaches have... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Aug 2016
First Look

August 2, 2016

the capital regulation of commercial banks? This paper builds a quantitative general equilibrium model with commercial banks and shadow banks to study the unintended consequences of capital requirements. A key feature of our model is defaultable bank View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

28 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Eyes Shut: The Consequences of Not Noticing

In their contracts with Walmart, suppliers must agree to accept any financial or criminal liability resulting from the sale of their products. Elmburg felt that Walmart, given its size and as the point of purchase, had an ability to... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman; Retail

25 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How Chapter 11 Saved the US Economy

the airline to work with the court to restructure and unload a significant amount of its debt, giving an iconic company "a second bite of the apple," says Gilson. An unabashed advocate of Chapter 11 and debt restructuring, Gilson is an expert in the View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Financial Services

04 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 4

foreign issuers' home country. These results challenge the legal bonding hypothesis while suggesting that the U.S. regime of civil liability as currently designed may not have been seen as a source of... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

August 2002 (Revised August 2002)
Case

Raiser Senior Services--The Stratford (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Focuses on modifying operations to increase profitability at an upscale senior care facility in California. Jennifer Raiser, president of Raiser Senior Services, opened the Stratford in 1992 as a high-end, continuing-care retirement community. Ten years later, the... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Profit; Saving; Health Care and Treatment; Age; Management Teams; Problems and Challenges; Ethics; Legal Liability; Business Growth and Maturation; Health Industry; Service Industry; California

12 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

‘Let the Buyer Beware’ Doesn’t Protect Investors

regulations become protection for them against legal liability. This occurs in two ways: (1) those actions not proscribed by law are presumably legal, and ways to mislead buyers are continually being developed, and updating of law is slow... View Details

Keywords: by D. Quinn Mills

31 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 31, 2009

rights, and legal liability of companies and executives for violating human rights. Purchase this note: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=309097 DreamWorks SKG Inc.: To... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Dec 2015
First Look

December 1, 2015

in the workplace, less attention has been paid to the question of how to manage those workers on the opposite side of the spectrum: those who are harmful to organizational performance. In extreme cases, aside from hurting performance, such workers can generate enormous... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News

By: Vincent Pons, Jesse M. Shapiro, Bharat Anand and Susan Pinckney

The case examines the Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News defamation settlement based upon statements made on air in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. View Details

07 Apr 2011
What Do You Think?

When Should the Public Sector Take Over in a Meltdown?

might be threatened. Rob Houck reminds us that considerations of potential legal liability often inhibit transparency in such cases. Should the public sector wait for an "invitation" for its... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Energy; Utilities

28 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 28

and risk. Download the paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1999484 Liability Structure in Small-Scale Finance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment Authors: Fenella Carpena, Shawn Cole, Jeremy Shapiro, and Bilal Zia... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Teaching Note

The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations

By: Mihir A. Desai and Suzanne Antoniou

How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants, including Representative Regina Goodwin of Tulsa, believe they should be addressed through reparations and have consequently continued to push the government... View Details

April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Conflicts of Interest at Uptown Bank

By: Jonas Heese

In 2013, two employees debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer, Bell Bank, after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. Bell Bank’s Asset Management business disproportionately invested clients’ money in Bell Bank’s... View Details

09 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 9

failures are likely to spur problem solving. We hypothesize that problem solving activities are especially likely to follow reported operational failures that provoke financial and legal liability risks. We... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

15 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: November 15

identifying possible forms of bias, and evaluating methods of verifying whether bias in fact occurs. I then consider possible legal and policy responses, and I assess search engines' likely defenses. I conclude that regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2021
Case

The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations

By: Mihir Desai, Ruth Page, Suzanne Antoniou and Leanne Fan

How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants, including Representative Regina Goodwin of Tulsa, believe they should be addressed through reparations and have consequently continued to push the government... View Details