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Abstract:
Developments in corporate law continue to give shareholders greater levels of power over public companies. Instead of using their power to seek changes within firms through such traditional means as proxy contests and litigation, shareholders are increasingly relying on private negotiations with directors as a key component of their governance activities. Regulations enacted in response to the recent financial crisis will likely trigger even more widespread use of negotiations in the years to come.

In this Article, I analyze the legal and policy implications generated by the use of private negotiations as a means of corporate governance. I make two related claims. First, I contend that negotiations provide shareholders and boards with several unique benefits that make them a more desirable method for resolving intra-firm differences than traditional means of corporate communication. In this sense, negotiations add value by filling a governance gap. Secondly, however, I argue that board-shareholder negotiations may never realize their full potential in governance due to current restrictions on corporate speech – namely, the SEC’s Regulation FD. The way in which Regulation FD impedes private negotiations stands at odds with many of the SEC’s own policy goals. To address this tension, additional regulatory intervention will be required for negotiations to continue to play a valuable role in governance.

Abstract:
Following the events of September 11, 2001, the Department of Justice promulgated a new Bureau of Prisons (BOP) rule that authorizes the government to monitor certain attorney-client conversations in the interests of public safety and national security. Because the BOP rule arguably will not survive scrutiny under traditional Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, the Department of Justice may wish to argue for the creation of a Sixth Amendment public-safety exception akin to that found in the context of the Miranda warnings. In this note, the author posits that support for such an exception under the Sixth Amendment can be premised on the Supreme Court's holding in Dickerson v. United States that Miranda warnings are constitutionally based within the framework of the Fifth Amendment. Because the Court has carved out a public-safety exception for Miranda warnings, which are now viewed as stemming from a constitutional rule, it stands to reason that the Court could do the same in the context of the Sixth Amendment. The author ultimately argues, however, that neither the Court’s uncertain Fifth Amendment jurisprudence nor the policy considerations behind the Sixth Amendment justify creating a public-safety exception to the Sixth Amendment.

Sixth Amendment, Miranda, Public Safety, Fifth Amendment, Dickerson