David Weber, associate professor, was named a trustee of the American Taxation Association.
Faculty
Football Season Is Kicking Off And Sponsors Spend Big
Seeking Alpha – Football season is kicking off! So starting opening day (September 7th) the ADS ARE COMING!
Sponsorships in the NFL are big business, in 2016 sponsorship revenue generated $1.25 billion for the year. That was a 4.3% increase over 2015 despite NFL ratings issues (source). Spread out, $1.25 billion was spent over 256 games in regular season and then playoffs.
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New Associate Deans for Business Programs
Professors Day, Souder Assume New Leadership Roles; Strive to Further Distinguish Business Programs
The School of Business has appointed two veteran professors, Bob Day and David Souder, to its top leadership team. Continue Reading
Puerto Rico’s Debt Dilemma and Pathways Toward Sovereign Solvency
American Business Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 1, 2017
Puerto Rico, as a quasi-sovereign U.S. territory, is confronting a debt crisis of unparalleled legal complexity. This article analyzes the collective action problems in sovereign debt finance in the context of Puerto Rico’s quasi-sovereign debt dilemma. We examine how sovereign debtors engage with their private creditors in the absence of a formal bankruptcy regime and show how various legal incentives, imperatives, and constraints shape the degree and form of creditor engagement. Drawing on this conceptual framework, this article analyzes the role of these factors in the market-based debt restructuring by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) and hypothesizes how these factors may influence the statutory restructuring process underway under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Despite the idiosyncratic aspects of Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, the potential pathways for debtor-creditor cooperation in Puerto Rico provide valuable insights on the various ways that law influences debtor-creditor cooperation in sovereign debt finance beyond the enforcement of state-based public regulation and contract-based private legal commitments. Full article.
Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability
Berger-Walliser, G., Shrivastava, P., Sulkowski, A. Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability. 6 Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, 1-36 (2016). Date Published: June 2017
We argue that proactive law can help organizations be more sustainable. Toward that end, this Article first summarizes proactive law literature as it pertains to corporate sustainability. Next, it examines a series of cases on the pivotal nexus between proactive law and corporate sustainability. It then advances novel propositions that connect proactive law to central organizational design elements. The discussion traces further implications and suggests fruitful avenues for research and ways of using proactive law for firms to become more sustainable. Full article.
From Visualization to Legal Design: A Collaborative and Creative Process
American Business Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2, Summer 2017, p. 347-392
Although the law remains predominately focused on the written word, a growing body of scholarship and legal practice reflect a dramatic increase in the use of visualization in virtually every legal context. Three starting assumptions underpin our ideas of implementing visualization ideas and techniques into what we call “Legal Design” that may aid contract simplification:
First, we examine the use of images in business documents and in statutes, rather than for advocacy. Moving away from adversarial settings offers several advantages. It permits us to illustrate the use of images in a broader range of practical legal applications. It also enables us to adopt the thinking, values, and methods of a non-traditional approach to lawyering and the law: “Preventive Law” or “Proactive Law” (combined here as “PPL”). Second, we offer guidelines for using images in conjunction with words rather than in isolation, since the law only rarely abandons its verbal expression. Realistically, visualization is almost always used in hybrid ways — combinations of words and images to enhance the effectiveness of communication. That seems unlikely to change, given the need for detail and refinement when the law is imposing duties on people. Finally, our method analyzes variables surrounding choices and consequences about the process of generating, transmitting, and using images to accompany legal language. Examining this dynamic can deepen our understanding of the information conveyed; it can also reveal the potential of visualization for creating spillover value for businesses or regulatory agencies that employ the images to advance legal and organizational effectiveness. Full article.
Folta to Oversee Professional Group
Westfair Communications – University of Connecticut management professor Timothy B. Folta has been elected to a five-year term overseeing the Business Policy and Strategy (BPS) Division of the Academy of Management. The academy is an organization of management educators, with more than 19,000 members in 120 countries. In addition to hosting conferences and supporting research, it publishes six research journals. The BPS division has more than 5,000 members.
Precarious Work: The Need for Flextime Employment Rights and Proposals for Reform
Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law, Vol. 37, Issue 1 (2016)
Millions of Americans are under intense pressure to balance work and family responsibilities. The feeling of overwork is rampant, with nearly half of employees feeling overworked or overwhelmed by their workplace responsibilities. This Article argues for a suite of legal protections that would allow working families, especially single-parent and low-income families, basic access to the rights and protections of flexible work. These protections include amending FLSA rides to better protect non-exempt workers from intrusions into their non-working time, as well as expanding the use of the FMLA to encourage more use of flexible leave. This article also recommends adoption of right-to-request legislation, enabling employees to request a flexible schedule and have that request meaningfully evaluated by their employer without fear of retaliation. Full article.
Turning Corporate Compliance into Competitive Advantage
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, Vol. 19, No.2 (2017)
Compliance is a core concern for corporate governance. Firms devote tremendous amounts of money, personnel, and attention to ensure compliance with regulatory mandates — and yet compliance failures proliferate. This is because the current static and binary view of compliance hinders both efficient compliance by firms and effective regulation by government. Understanding the reality that compliance is both dynamic and driven by efficiency empowers firms to evolve past mere conformance and into wealth maximizing innovation. This Article develops an efficient investment-risk (EIR) model of compliance that captures the tradeoffs between cost and risk, parses the oft-commingled concepts of technical efficiency and allocative efficiency, and enables firms to obtain a competitive advantage through compliance. We also turn our attention to regulators, and highlight how the EIR model can enhance regulatory design, foster regulator-firm cooperation, and advance the mutual goals of business and society. Full article.
There’s One Major Thing Everyone Gets Wrong About Amazon and the Retail Apocalypse
Business Insider – Amazon and the rise of online shopping have been repeatedly blamed for the staggering rate of store closures and bankruptcies disrupting the retail industry in the US.
But e-commerce accounts for only a small fraction of the problems pushing many American retailers to the brink of death, according to Doug Stephens, a retail-industry consultant.