John C. Coffee Jr. – författare

In the wake of a series of corporate governance disasters in the US and Europe which have gained almost mythic status - Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, HealthSouth, Parmalat - one question has not yet been addressed. A number of ''gatekeeping'' professions - auditors, attorneys, securities analysts, credit-rating agencies - exist to guard against these governance failures. Yet clearly these watchdogs did not bark while corporations were looted and destroyed. But why not?To answer these questions, a more detailed investigation is necessary that moves beyond journalism and easy scapegoating, and examines the evolution, responsibilities, and standards of these professions. John Coffee, world-renowned Professor of Corporate Law, examines how these gatekeeping professions developed, to what degree they failed, and what reforms are feasible. Above all, this book examines the institutional changes and pressures that caused gatekeepers to underperform or neglect their responsibilities, and focuses on those feasible changes that can restore gatekeepers as the loyal agents of investors.This informed and readable view of the players on the contemporary business stage will be essential reading for investors, professionals, executives and business academics concerned with issues of good governance.

Fascinating as the corporate takeovers of recent years have been--with their "golden parachutes" and junk bonds, "greenmailers" and white knights--it is far from clear what underlying forces are at work, and what their long-term consequences will be. Debate over these questions has become polarized: some see takeover threats as disciplinary mechanisms that induce managers to behave efficiently and move assets to higher valued uses or into the hands of more efficient managers; others claim that corporate raiders have produced few observable increases in operating efficiency, but rather have disrupted business planning, enforced a preoccupation with the short-term, and tilted the balance sheets of corporate America towards dangerously high debt levels. Such sharp conflicts in theory and evidence have produced considerable governmental confusion concerning the appropriate policy response. Scores of bills have been introduced in Congress, but legislators are no more in agreement than scholars.Knights, Raiders, and Targets represents one of the first sustained efforts to refine and clarify these issues. Based on papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Columbia Law School''s Center for Law and Economic Studies, it also includes discussion of the informal presentations made at the symposium by the CEOs of several major corporations. This important book airs new theories and offers vital and exciting discussion of the essential issues attached to an event that has become central to American corporate culture.

In the wake of a series of corporate governance disasters in the US and Europe which have gained almost mythic status - Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, HealthSouth, Parmalat - one question has not yet been addressed. A number of 'gatekeeping' professions - auditors, attorneys, securities analysts, credit-rating agencies - exist to guard against these governance failures. Yet clearly these watchdogs did not bark while corporations were looted and destroyed. But why not?To answer these questions, a more detailed investigation is necessary that moves beyond journalism and easy scapegoating, and examines the evolution, responsibilities, and standards of these professions. John C. Coffee Jr, world-renowned Professor of Corporate Law, examines how these gatekeeping professions developed, to what degree they failed, and what reforms are feasible. Above all, this book examines the institutional changes and pressures that caused gatekeepers to underperform or neglect their responsibilities, and focuses on those feasible changes that can restore gatekeepers as the loyal agents of investors.This informed and readable view of the players on the contemporary business stage will be essential reading for investors, professionals, executives and business academics concerned with issues of good governance.

In the wake of a series of corporate governance disasters in the US and Europe which have gained almost mythic status - Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, HealthSouth, Parmalat - one question has not yet been addressed. A number of 'gatekeeping' professions - auditors, attorneys, securities analysts, credit-rating agencies - exist to guard against these governance failures. Yet clearly these watchdogs did not bark while corporations were looted and destroyed. But why not?To answer these questions, a more detailed investigation is necessary that moves beyond journalism and easy scapegoating, and examines the evolution, responsibilities, and standards of these professions. John Coffee, world-renowned Professor of Corporate Law, examines how these gatekeeping professions developed, to what degree they failed, and what reforms are feasible. Above all, this book examines the institutional changes and pressures that caused gatekeepers to underperform or neglect their responsibilities, and focuses on those feasible changes that can restore gatekeepers as the loyal agents of investors.This informed and readable view of the players on the contemporary business stage will be essential reading for investors, professionals, executives and business academics concerned with issues of good governance.

Uniquely in the United States, lawyers litigate large cases on behalf of many claimants who could not afford to sue individually. In these class actions, attorneys act typically as risk-taking entrepreneurs, effectively hiring the client rather than acting as the client’s agent. Lawyer-financed, lawyer-controlled, and lawyer-settled, such entrepreneurial litigation invites lawyers to sometimes act more in their own interest than in the interest of their clients. And because class litigation aggregates many claims, defendants object that its massive scale amounts to legalized extortion. Yet, without such devices as the class action and contingent fees, many meritorious claims would never be asserted.John Coffee examines the dilemmas surrounding entrepreneurial litigation in a variety of specific contexts, including derivative actions, securities class actions, merger litigation, and mass tort litigation. His concise history traces how practices developed since the early days of the Republic, exploded at the end of the twentieth century, and then waned as Supreme Court decisions and legislation sharply curtailed the reach of entrepreneurial litigation. In an evenhanded account, Coffee assesses both the strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurial litigation and proposes a number of reforms to achieve a fairer balance. His goal is to save the class action, not discard it, and to make private enforcement of law more democratically accountable. Taking a global perspective, he also considers the feasibility of exporting a modified form of entrepreneurial litigation to other countries that are today seeking a mechanism for aggregate representation.

The EU and the US responded to the global financial crisis by changing the rules for the functioning of financial services and markets and by establishing new oversight bodies. With the US Dodd-Frank Act and numerous EU regulations and directives now in place, this book provides a timely and thoughtful explanation of the key elements of the new regimes in both regions, of the political processes which shaped their content and of their practical impact. Insights from areas such as economics, political science and financial history elucidate the significance of the reforms. Australia's resilience during the financial crisis, which contrasted sharply with the severe problems that were experienced in the EU and the US, is also examined. The comparison between the performances of these major economies in a period of such extreme stress tells us much about the complex regulatory and economic ecosystems of which financial markets are a part.

A study and analysis of lack of enforcement against criminal actions in corporate America and what can be done to fix it.In the early 2000s, federal enforcement efforts sent white collar criminals at Enron and WorldCom to prison. But since the 2008 financial collapse, this famously hasn’t happened. Corporations have been permitted to enter into deferred prosecution agreements and avoid criminal convictions, in part due to a mistaken assumption that leniency would encourage cooperation and because enforcement agencies don’t have the funding or staff to pursue lengthy prosecutions, says distinguished Columbia Law Professor John C. Coffee. “We are moving from a system of justice for organizational crime that mixed carrots and sticks to one that is all carrots and no sticks,” he says.He offers a series of bold proposals for ensuring that corporate malfeasance can once again be punished. For example, he describes incentives that could be offered to both corporate executives to turn in their corporations and to corporations to turn in their executives, allowing prosecutors to play them off against each other. Whistleblowers should be offered cash bounties to come forward because, Coffee writes, “it is easier and cheaper to buy information than seek to discover it in adversarial proceedings.” All federal enforcement agencies should be able to hire outside counsel on a contingency fee basis, which would cost the public nothing and provide access to discovery and litigation expertise the agencies don't have. Through these and other equally controversial ideas, Coffee intends to rebalance the scales of justice.“Professor Coffee’s compelling new approach to holding fraudsters to account is indispensable reading for any lawmaker serious about deterring corporate crime.” —Robert Jackson, professor of Law, New York University, and former commissioner, Securities and Exchange Commission“A great book that more than any other recent volume deftly explains why effective prosecution of corporate senior executives largely collapsed in the post-2007–2009 stock market crash period and why this creates a crisis of under enforcement. No one is Professor Coffee’s equal in tying together causes for the crisis.” —Joel Seligman, author, historian, former law school dean, and president emeritus, University of Rochester