Law

Akzo and Elliott are trapped in a lose-lose battle

11 Aug 2017

The Dutch paint maker has won a legal victory over its biggest shareholder, which is trying to oust the chairman. The increasingly pointless fight is likely to drag on beyond September’s shareholder meeting unless new CEO Thierry Vanlancker can make both sides see sense.

Uber investor’s lawsuit pounds on founder power

10 Aug 2017

Venture-capital firm Benchmark is suing the ride-hailing app's deposed boss Travis Kalanick, accusing him of entrenching himself on the board. The rare imbroglio for clubby Silicon Valley comes as stock indexes shun dual-class shares. Momentum is mounting for better governance.

Poland’s new tricks expose EU’s old weakness

25 Jul 2017

Judicial reforms that jeopardized the rule of law were stalled by the president, not European censure. Yet the bloc had little ability to impose sanctions anyway. As when nations flout budget rules, EU membership tests are more strictly enforced before entry than after.

Carmakers need more collaboration, not less

24 Jul 2017

Germany’s VW, BMW and Daimler may have illegally colluded on emissions cleaning systems. The scale of potential misconduct is hard to judge. But if consumers don’t suffer, big technological change and bloated R&D budgets suggest more carmaker cooperation is nothing to be feared.

IPO baggage weighs heavier on ZTO

21 Jul 2017

A U.S. pension fund is suing the Chinese courier and its underwriters for inflating profit margins in its $1.4 bln New York debut last year. Shares have traded poorly since, and the company faces rising costs and fierce competition. Winning over sceptics will be even harder now.

Exchange Podcast: Jesse Eisinger

11 Jul 2017

Why didn't any Wall Street bigwigs go to jail over the 2008 financial crisis? ProPublica reporter Jesse Eisinger argues that's because prosecutors joined "The Chickenshit Club," which is also the title of his new book.

Holding: Judges owe investors principle, too

11 Jul 2017

The U.S. Supreme Court has been paying greater interest to securities-related cases. One against tech firm Cyan is the latest. Yet narrow and unpredictable rulings have confused shareholders about everything from insider trading to filing deadlines. Clearer standards are overdue.

Companies will have their day in Trump’s courts

10 Jul 2017

The White House travel ban and environmental rollbacks got blocked in court, but there are over 100 judicial vacancies for the famously litigious president to fill. Aging jurists could leave even more open seats. That may reshape upcoming battles in finance, tech and beyond.

Elliott renews totemic siege of Dutch boardrooms

7 Jul 2017

The U.S. hedge fund has launched a new legal bid to dismiss Akzo Nobel chair Antony Burgmans. The move may not revive the Dutch group’s sale to PPG that Elliott wants. Yet after defeat in a separate case, it shows activist investors haven’t given up on the Netherlands just yet.

Match.com owner leaves investors looking for love

26 Jun 2017

A CalPERS lawsuit has forced IAC to scrap plans to use non-voting stock to give Chairman Barry Diller eternal control of the company. Legal threats may thwart similar egregious ideas. But to remove existing supervoting powers at Facebook, Snap and the like is a far harder task.

Reasons to fret about Hong Kong’s post-2047 future

23 Jun 2017

China’s promise to uphold “one country, two systems” does not expire for three decades. Yet property owners and citizens have little idea of what comes next.  Drastic changes to the legal system are unlikely. Still, there is ample room for a crisis of confidence long before 2047.

Trump ethics waivers fail Delaware smell test

15 Jun 2017

Some White House officials have received permission to work on issues they handled as lobbyists. The exemptions violate earlier swamp-draining steps signed by the CEO-president. In the corporate context Trump prefers, such conflicts of interest also wouldn't stack up in court.

U.S. lawmaking umpire’s budget may meet resistance

15 Jun 2017

The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan number-cruncher, wants a 7 pct funding bump. The Trump team doesn't control that directly, but it isn't giving other data agencies extra and it dislikes the CBO. It's crucial, though, to a rational assessment of new legislation.

Holding: White House holds trump card in gift suit

15 Jun 2017

Democrats in Congress filed a third case claiming Donald Trump violated the constitutional ban on presents. All the accusers face long odds of proving they were hurt directly or that the lawsuits belong in court. Impeachment remains the better option for the president's critics.

RBS pays prudent price to bury Goodwin-era shame

30 May 2017

The UK bank is close to settling with investors who say they were misled in the run-up to its 2008 bailout. Doubling their payout will cost an extra 100 mln pounds. But it spares RBS the risk of losing in court and the embarrassment of revisiting ex-CEO Fred Goodwin’s decisions.

Holding: Courts may save startups from redemptions

25 May 2017

Cashing out venture capitalists on demand can leave other investors in a lurch. A case involving onetime dot-com darling Oversee.net and Oak Hill suggests judges have growing concerns. It’s an overdue warning about how such conflicts can hurt fledgling firms and their owners.

Nokia-Apple spat lays bare tech law of the jungle

23 May 2017

The two groups settled a patent row with a deal that includes the U.S. giant buying extra kit, and selling Nokia products in Apple stores. Patent wars may appear to be about legal rights and wrongs. They’re really just a fight over who gets what share of the value chain.

EU could spoil Uber’s cross-country road trip

12 May 2017

Travis Kalanick’s ride-hailing service can be regulated like any other transport firm, according to an EU legal opinion. That actually changes little – many member states already do. The big difference is that it would puncture Uber’s fantasy of European single-market protections.

U.S. sheriff shoots own foot amid FBI skirmish

10 May 2017

The DOJ provided dubious cover for Director James Comey's dismissal, which risks undermining its moral authority overseas. U.S. prosecutors often step into cases, such as VW and FIFA, their counterparts won't. Foreign enforcers could now be more wary of providing necessary help.

Shareholder battle weakens Akzo’s standalone case

9 May 2017

Activist investor Elliott is taking the Dutch paint maker to court in an attempt to oust chairman Antony Burgmans. Akzo’s defence against suitor PPG rests on its stock trading on a higher multiple after a corporate rejig. But bad governance could cancel out any upside.