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As a part of the overhaul of the corporate governance norms, the Indian Government recently introduced class action suits for shareholders in India. This paper aims to analyze the efficacy of the existing legislation in its present form. It also examines whether the Indian law is equipped to handle the globalized markets, wherein shareholders are spread across different continents.

The paper relies on meta-analyses. This study analyzes the existing case laws, news reports and legislative materials.

The author, through her analyses, has concluded that the introduction of class action suits into the Indian corporate governance regime is only a half-hearted attempt. The Indian lawmakers have failed to learn from their foreign counterparts. There are no provisions to deter frivolous litigation. Furthermore, it is contentious whether the Indian law will be able to cater to transnational class action suits.

This paper is original. There is a scarcity of literature on Indian corporate governance norms. This paper examines the very nascent concept of class action suits in India. India has become an investment hub in the past decade. Therefore, this paper has practical implications in understanding the Indian legal setup, in comparison to its foreign counterparts.

Consistent with an “absolute bonding hypothesis,” the benefits of listing on US exchanges experienced by cross-listed firms are accompanied by an increased risk of experiencing a spillover effect due to negative news within their industry. The purpose of this study is to test this form of the bonding hypothesis by analyzing the spillover effect to cross-listed firms when class action lawsuits are filed against their industry peers.

The bonding hypothesis is tested by analyzing the spillover effect to non-sued cross-listed firms of class action lawsuits brought against US domestic firms in the same industry. The spillover effect is identified using cumulative abnormal returns around lawsuit filing dates from 1996 to 2020. A sample of matched non-sued cross-listed and domestic peer firms is evaluated in a cross-sectional analysis to identify country and firm-level characteristics that mitigate the negative spillover effect to cross-listed firms.

While US firms realize significantly negative abnormal returns when class action suits are filed against their industry peers, the impact to cross-listed peers is statistically insignificant. In multivariate analyses, we show that the ability of cross-listed firms to avoid this negative spillover effect is stronger for firms with greater profitability that are headquartered in countries with better shareholder protections and governance characteristics.

Results suggest that cross-listed firms may have a level of immunization from the negative industry spillover effect of class action lawsuits and, thus, exhibit only “partial bonding” to the US market.

The purpose of this paper is to expand our understanding of the motivations for corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting.

This paper provides a conceptual exploration of the motivation for corporations to provide ESG reports and proposes deterrence theory and avoidance as a complementary explanatory motivation for such reports.

Within this paper it is argued that part of the motivation for some corporations to increase ESG disclosures is to avoid, or mitigate, the risk of class actions and the associated financial penalties. This paper proposes that in Australia the deterrence impact, and ancillary avoidance behaviour, of civil litigation class action provides a further motivation for improving both corporate ESG disclosure and sustainability performance.

This paper extends the social and environmental accounting (SEA) reporting literature by proposing deterrence theory and avoidance as a corporate motivation for environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. Deterrence is proposed as a different, yet complementary, motivation to the oft‐cited variations of stakeholder and legitimacy theory which are dominant in the SEA reporting motivation literature.

All clients are to some extent subject to their attorney's construction of their interests. This state of affairs reaches the extreme in the case of the class action because the class action permits masses of individual claims to be combined in one proceeding to promote efficiency and solve collective action problems. Class action scholars have long debated the role of class members without conclusion. The doctrine on whether and when the class member is considered a “party” to the litigation is incoherent. Neither courts nor commentators are clear on limits of the ethical duty of class counsel – does it run to individual class members or to the class as a whole? And if such a duty runs to the class as a whole, is the class an entity, like a corporation, or an aggregation of individuals each of whom is entitled to enforce class counsel's attorney–client obligations?

In class action antitrust litigation, the standards for acceptable economic analysis at class certification have continued to evolve. The most recent event in this evolution is the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S. Ct. 1435 (2013). The evolution of pre-Comcast law on this topic is presented, the Comcast decision is thoroughly assessed, as are the standards for developing reliable economic analysis. This article explains how economic evidence of both antitrust liability and damages ought to be developed in light of the teachings of Comcast, and how liability evidence can be used by economists to support a finding of common impact for certification purposes. In addition, the article addresses how statistical techniques such as averaging, price-dispersion analysis, and multiple regressions have and should be employed to establish common proof of damages.

The purpose of this paper is to survey the landscape of recent federal securities class actions filed in state court and explore arguments for removal of those cases to federal courts under the Securities Litigation Reform Act (SLUSA) or the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).

The paper discusses: US Congressional legislation designed to bring the bulk of securities class actions back into federal courts, including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) and SLUSA; CAFA, another law designed to redirect class action litigation away from state courts; recent cases that have tested the limits of SLUSA and CAFA for removal from state to federal courts; and arguments for removal under SLUSA and CAFA.

Legislative history for both SLUSA and CAFA suggests that these statutes should be read as evidence of Congressional intent to return most securities class actions to federal court. Nonetheless, plaintiffs have continued to devise legal schemes to litigate class actions in what they perceive to be friendlier forums in state courts.

Although the arguments discussed in this paper are not exhaustive, they are a starting point for defendants seeking removal once litigation arises.

This research chapter argues lawyers, not just bankers, for good and bad have been involved in all aspects of the current financial crisis. Indeed after examining and assessing various civil causes of action related to the “Mortgage Meltdown” and its aftermath, it appears if lawyers had been less involved or had raised warnings about legal risks as well as economic ones, whether the financial impact would have been so disastrous and widespread. Indeed by raising cautionary flags earlier, lawyers might have better served both the clients’ and the public's long-term interests. This view thus complements issues related to criminally prosecuting mortgage fraud that has also seen explosive growth and where lawyers have again played central roles. Lawyers have been involved at the back end too in terms of legislation or resolving issues such as bankruptcies and foreclosures.

The chapter examines several causes of action the media have reported being raised by various parties and how they illustrate the role lawyers, regulations, and legislation have played in the origins and evolution of the current crisis. The cases explored involve individual parties and class actions. The chapter also analyzes in detail a case representing opposite ends of the origination and foreclosure closure spectrum by describing a derivative shareholder suit against corporate officers and directors actively involved in creating the subprime mess, who were then sued for covering up the inevitable results from failed loans in the reports to shareholders. It thus illustrates the legal complexities emerging from the abuse of complex financial and organizational structures impacting many investors. Finally the chapter concludes by arguing there is a public policy need not only for financial regulatory reform but also for a tightening in the professional standards and regulatory penalties imposed on lawyers involved in such transactions.

Since the late 1970s, US employers have increasingly drawn upon legal temporary labor under the H-2 visa to address their labor needs in low-waged sectors. Ever since, what Clark calls migrant labor activism and conflict in the courts has similarly erupted. However, as she argues in this chapter, making “adversarial legalism” the H-2 way of law has also been a story of comparative state formation. For, the litigation largely reflects the structure of labor migration created after the demise of government-run migration. In this regard, activists wrestle with the problems created by the new role of global labor intermediaries in the recruitment process, absolute employer control over hiring and firing, and the coercion produced in the shadow of a now minimally interventionist state. Drawing upon archival research, interviews with legal professionals, and the entire case law docket in this area, this chapter puts “adversarial legalism” under the H-2 visa in its historical and political context.

In the USA, unlike Germany, Japan, and many other nations, victims ordinarily play a very limited role in the prosecution of crimes. Indeed, victims have so little prosecutorial authority that a growing ‘victims' rights‘ movement calls for constitutional amendments to give victims more control over criminal trials. Yet American law features some important exceptions to this general rule — for many environmental and white‐collar crimes, private citizens can bring actions to enforce the law. What makes these actions unique is the absence of ‘standing’ requirements that oblige the plaintiff to demonstrate that he or she was directly harmed by the criminal's actions.