Contracting Out of the Fiduciary Duty of Loyalty: An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Opportunity Waivers

50 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2016 Last revised: 25 May 2017

See all articles by Gabriel V. Rauterberg

Gabriel V. Rauterberg

University of Michigan Law School

Eric L. Talley

Columbia University - School of Law; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Date Written: August 12, 2016

Abstract

For centuries, the duty of loyalty has been the hallowed centerpiece of fiduciary obligation, widely considered one of the few “mandatory” rules of corporate law. That view, however, is no longer true. Beginning in 2000, Delaware dramatically departed from tradition by granting incorporated entities a statutory right to waive a crucial part of the duty of loyalty: the corporate opportunities doctrine. Other states have since followed Delaware’s lead, similarly permitting firms to execute “corporate opportunity waivers.” Surprisingly, more than fifteen years into this reform experiment, no empirical study has attempted to measure either the corporate response to these reforms, or to evaluate the implications of that response.

This Article presents the first broad empirical investigation of the area. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that hundreds of public corporations have adopted waivers – often with capacious scope and reach. We thus establish a central empirical fact that is an important baseline for further discussion: public corporations have an enormous appetite for contracting out of the duty of loyalty when freed to do so. Our analysis further sheds light on the high-stakes normative debate around the relationship between fiduciary principles and freedom of contract. What types of corporations choose to contract around default rules? When they do so, do such measures tend to bolster or thwart shareholder welfare? We develop an efficient contracting approach to explain why corporations – and their shareholders – might favor tailoring the duty of loyalty, and provide empirical evidence that Delaware’s experiment has generally been a success.

Keywords: Fiduciary Duties, Corporate Opportunities, Duty of Loyalty, Corporate Governance

JEL Classification: K22, L22, G32, G34

Suggested Citation

Rauterberg, Gabriel V. and Talley, Eric L., Contracting Out of the Fiduciary Duty of Loyalty: An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Opportunity Waivers (August 12, 2016). Columbia Law Review, Forthcoming, Columbia Law and Economics Working Paper No. 549, U of Michigan Law & Econ Research Paper No. 16-023, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2822248

Gabriel V. Rauterberg

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
United States

Eric L. Talley (Contact Author)

Columbia University - School of Law ( email )

435 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10025
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.erictalley.com

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

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