Bebchuk's Case for Increasing Shareholder Power: An Opposition

Abstract

This paper sets out the view that Lucian Bebchuk's "case for increasing shareholder power" is exceedingly weak. It demonstrates that Bebchuk's proposed overthrow of core Delaware corporate law principles risks extraordinarily costly disruption without any assurance of corresponding benefit; that Bechuk's case is unsupported by any persuasive empirical data; that Bebchuk's premise that corporate boards cannot be trusted to respect their fiduciary duty finds no resonance in the observed experience of boardroom practitioners (perhaps not surprisingly, as the proposal comes from the height of the ivory tower); and that its obsession with shareholder power is particularly suspect (if not downright dangerous) in light of the palpable practical problems of any shareholder-centric approach.

Keywords: Corporate governance, shareholders, boards, directors

JEL Classification: D70, G30, G32, G34, G38, K2