A Bridle, a Prod and a Big Stick: An Evaluation of Class Actions, Shareholder Proposals and the Ultra Vires Doctrine as Methods for Controlling Corporate Behavior

Written for the recent conference at St. John’s University Law School on “People of Color, Women, and the Public Corporation,” this paper evaluates recently applied methods of influencing corporate behavior on employment practices and recommends that a dormant legal doctrine be revitalized and added to the “tool box” of activists and concerned shareholders. The methods of influencing corporate behavior that are evaluated include class action lawsuits and shareholder proposals to amend corporate policy. In both contexts, there are procedural hurdles to achieving success. Even when success is achieved, there are limits to the actual changes in organizational behavior that result. A third means for influencing corporate behavior would not involve the same theoretical or structural limitations. The ultra vires doctrine historically allowed a shareholder to sue to prevent a company from engaging in an activity outside of the specific parameters of its corporate charter. While the doctrine was almost done away with during the 1900s inasmuch as companies are now free to alter their field of business as they wish, a narrow slice of this doctrine remains. Namely, corporate charters typically are required to limit a corporation to “lawful activities,” and forty-nine states have statutes empowering the state to enjoin or dissolve the corporation for illegal acts. Therefore, shareholders still have the power to sue a company to prevent the violation of laws. In the context of a company such as Wal-Mart, for example, a well-documented pattern of widespread illegal gender discrimination could therefore be grounds for a shareholder bringing an ultra vires lawsuit. Unlike a shareholder proposal, the available remedies could include a court order to cease the activity and to adopt a detailed monitoring, training and compliance plan. Unlike a class action, the high hurdles of certifying the plaintiffs as class representatives would not exist. Nor would there be the same mix of practical concerns that contribute to class action attorneys emphasizing monetary rewards over long-term, disciplined equitable relief that is geared to actually altering company practices in the future. The only limitation on using the ultra vires doctrine is that there must be evidence that a company is in violation of an actual law in a jurisdiction where it operates. In those contexts, ultra vires can effectively enable a form of shareholder enforcement suit to ensure compliance with the federal laws of the United States or the statutes of foreign nations or individual states’ laws

Depleting Depletion: Maintaining Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Dispersions after Graft-to Polymer Functionalization

Grafting polymers onto single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) usefully alters properties but does not typically yield stable, solvated species directly. Despite the expectation of steric stabilization, a damaging (re)dispersion step is usually necessary. Here, poly(vinyl acetate)s (PVAc) of varying molecular weights are grafted to individualized, reduced SWCNTs at different concentrations to examine the extent of reaction and degree of solvation. The use of higher polymer concentrations leads to an increase in grafting ratio (weight fraction of grafted polymer relative to the SWCNT framework), approaching the limit of random sequentially adsorbed Flory ‘mushrooms’ on the surface. However, at higher polymer concentrations, a larger percentage of SWCNTs precipitate during the reaction; an effect which is more significant for larger weight polymers. The precipitation is attributed to depletion interactions generated by ungrafted homopolymer overcoming Coulombic repulsion of adjacent like-charged SWCNTs; a simple model is proposed. Larger polymers and greater degrees of functionalization favor stable solvation, but larger and more concentrated homopolymers increase depletion aggregation. By using low concentrations (25 μM) of larger molecular weight PVAc (10 kDa), up to 65% of grafted SWCNTs were retained in solution (at 65 μg mL-1) directly after the reaction

Designing Politics: the limits of design

What are the limits of design in addressing the political and/or when has design not been enough? A collection of thought pieces written by Theatrum Mundi’s Designing Politics Working Group following a workshop at the Villa Vassilieff in Paris on 25th May 2016. This working group is supported by the Global Cities Chair at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris

The profile of head injuries and traumatic brain injury deaths in Kashmir

This study was conducted on patients of head injury admitted through Accident & Emergency Department of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences during the year 2004 to determine the number of head injury patients, nature of head injuries, condition at presentation, treatment given in hospital and the outcome of intervention. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) deaths were also studied retrospectively for a period of eight years (1996 to 2003)

Correlates of substance abuse treatment completion among disadvantaged communities in Cape Town, South Africa

BACKGROUND: Completion of substance abuse treatment is a proximal indicator of positive treatment outcomes. To design interventions to improve outcomes, it is therefore important to unpack the factors contributing to treatment completion. To date, substance abuse research has not examined the factors associated with treatment completion among poor, disadvantaged communities in developing countries. This study aimed to address this gap by exploring client-level factors associated with treatment completion among poor communities in South Africa. METHODS: Secondary data analysis was conducted on cross-sectional survey data collected from 434 persons residing in poor communities in Cape Town, South Africa who had accessed substance abuse treatment in 2006. RESULTS: Multiple regression analyses revealed that therapeutic alliance, treatment perceptions, abstinence-specific social support, and depression were significant partial predictors of treatment completion. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that treatment completion rates of individuals from poor South African communities can be enhanced by i) improving perceptions of substance abuse treatment through introducing quality improvement initiatives into substance abuse services, ii) strengthening clients' abstinence-oriented social networks and, iii) strengthening the counselor-client therapeutic alliance