Irresponsible Corporate-Responsibility Rules

Authors

  • Lide E. Paterno

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/lawreview.2016.419

Abstract

A wave of legislative efforts in the first half of this decade, at both the federal and state levels, has steered corporations to engage in corporate social responsibility. At the national level, Congress is increasingly calling upon the Securities and Exchange Commission to promulgate specialized disclosure rules. The most notable example is Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose their use of broadly defined “conflict minerals” in any products the corporations manufacture. At the local level, well over half the state legislatures have adopted benefit corporation statutes meant to encourage corporate directors to promote the public good.

These two well-meaning phenomena appear congruent and their goals seem promising: superficially, the SEC’s specialized disclosure rules can be characterized as federal benefit corporation rules. Closer examination, however, reveals that the reasoning bolstering the state benefit corporation statutes, aimed more at symbolism than substance, undermines the likely effectiveness of the federal specialized disclosure rules. Comparison of the two models indicates that the federal rules yield substantial costs but speech of little value, little change in corporate behavior, and, consequently, little advancement of the social cause the rules target. Econometric analysis of first-year filings under the SEC conflict minerals regulations supports this apprehension, suggesting that the benefits of the federal benefit corporation rules are more illusory than actual. By over-promising and under-delivering, these federal corporate social responsibility rules are, in fact, irresponsible.

Downloads

Published

2016-07-01

How to Cite

Paterno, Lide E. 2016. “Irresponsible Corporate-Responsibility Rules”. University of Pittsburgh Law Review 77 (4). https://doi.org/10.5195/lawreview.2016.419.

Issue

Vol. 77 No. 4 (2016)

Section

Articles

License


Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.

    2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.

    3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons 4.0 License (Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works), or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
      1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
      2. Noncommercial—other users (including Publisher) may not use this Work for commercial purposes;
      3. No Derivative Works—other users (including Publisher) may not alter, transform, or build upon this Work,with the understanding that any of the above conditions can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

    4. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

    5. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.

    6. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.

    7. The Author represents and warrants that:

      1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
      2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
      3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
      4. the Work has not previously been published;
      5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
      6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
         
    8. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.