Class actions for monetary relief have long been the subject of in­tense legal and political debate. The stakes are now higher than ever. Contractual agreements requiring arbitration are proliferating, limit­ing the availability of class actions as a vehicle for collective redress. In Congress, legislative proposals related to class actions are mired in par­ti­san division. Democrats would roll back mandatory arbitration agree­ments while...

As U.S. competition authorities ponder whether age-old antitrust laws should be modernized to apply to tech giants, a first-order question is: What existing antitrust laws apply to their conduct? A formerly formida­ble tool that has been defanged through lax enforcement is the Robinson–Patman Act (RPA). Passed by Congress in 1936, the RPA was drafted in response to a growing public concern that large chain stores were squeezing out small businesses....

Introduction When a Louisiana state court set Ronald Egana’s bail at $26,000, Egana’s mother and close friend did what hundreds of thousands of arrestees do each year: They sought the services of a commercial bail bondsman. Blair’s Bail Bonds agreed to post Egana’s bail in exchange for a twelve-percent nonrefundable premium, the state-approved rate in […]

* Partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Law Clerk to the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, October Term 1998.

In Borrowing Equality, Professor Atkinson deftly demonstrates Congress’s nonsensical bifurcation of the twin concepts of “credit” and “debt,” whereby it celebrates and encourages the former and regulates and punishes the latter. She then shows that, in refusing to acknowledge the harmful consequences of indebtedness while legislating credit-based solu­tions to inequality, these credit policies in fact entrench the very hierar­chies...

For twenty-five years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought enforcement actions against companies for data breaches using its statutory authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to police “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” While the Commission originally brought cases under the “deceptive” prong of Section 5, more recent cases have been brought under the vague “unfairness” prong. These cases allege that a company that...

On September 30, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 206, otherwise known as “The Fair Pay to Play Act.” When it goes into effect, the Fair Pay to Play Act will allow student-athletes enrolled in California colleges and universities to be compensated for the use of their name, images, and likenesses […]

The following Piece reflects the revised and extended remarks given by Barbara Novick at the Harvard Roundtable on Corporate Governance, November 6, 2019. Thank you to Lucian Bebchuk for inviting me to share some thoughts on investment stewardship to kick off the 2019 Corporate Governance Roundtable. I. Academic Theories on Investment Stewardship Corporate governance and […]

Index funds own an increasingly large proportion of American public companies. The stewardship decisions of index fund managers—how they monitor, vote, and engage with their portfolio companies—can be expected to have a profound impact on the governance and performance of public companies and the economy. Understanding index fund stewardship, and how policymaking can improve it, is thus critical for corporate law scholarship. In this Article...