|
Institute
for Law & Economics
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 |
| Michael
L. Wachter |
Edward
B. Rock |
Michael
L. Wachter William B.
Johnson Professor of Law and Edward B. Rock Saul A.
Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law, Co-Directors of the
Institute for Law and Economics, planned an active docket of lectures,
roundtables and symposia during this academic year. Founded in 1980,
the work of the Institute has expanded and become a national model
for interdisciplinary studies. The Institute for Law and Economics
is a joint research effort between the Law School, the Wharton School,
and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts & Sciences.
Its esteemed Board of Advisors includes attorneys, members of the
judiciary, financiers, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders throughout
the nation. |
Professor
Edward B. Rock Featured as Inaugural Fox Lecturer
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| Professor
Edward B. Rock with Dr. Judith Rodin and Saul A. Fox |
As the newly-named Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Law Edward
B. Rock, also the co-director of the Institute for Law and Economics,
delivered the inaugural Saul A. Fox Lecture, “How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Pill.” Rock presented a working paper that
he is writing in collaboration with NYU Law Professor Marcel Kahan that
looks at the Poison Pill, a financial instrument crafted in the 1980s.
“Our disquiet comes from the fact there hasn’t been anything
new written about the Pill in 20 years,” Rock stated. He provided
a history of this era, beginning with the merger and acquisitions heyday
of the 1980s that gave rise to the innovation that arose out of Moran
v. Household International in 1985, a case which went to the Delaware
Supreme Court. In the period he identified as post-Moran, specifically
citing Paramount v. Time (1989), the initiation of hostile takeovers declined
by 90%. Bringing the subject into the present, Rock spoke of the increase
in offering stock options to CEOs, and a change of climate in which the
world adjusted to the Poison Pill, and shareholders “learned to live
with it, though not love it.” The article will be published in a
forthcoming issue of the University of Chicago Law Review. The Saul A.
Fox Distinguished Professorship in Business Law and the associated Saul
A. Fox Endowed Research Fund was established by the Winding Way Foundation
in 2001 in honor of 1978 Law School graduate Saul A. Fox, Chief Executive
of private equity investment firm Fox Paine & Company of Foster City,
California. 
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