|
Agency Costs
An agency cost is an economic concept that refers to the costs associated with the relationship between a " principal" (an organization, person or group of persons), and an " agent". The agent is given powers to make decisions on behalf of the principal. However, the two parties may have different incentives and the agent generally has more information. The principal cannot directly ensure that its agent is always acting in its (the principal's) best interests.''Pay Without Performance'' by Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried, Harvard University Press 2004preface and introduction This potential divergence in interests is what gives rise to agency costs. Common examples of this cost include: * according to the Friedman doctrine, the cost borne by shareholders (the principals) when corporate management (the agent) buys other companies to expand its power, or spends money on vanity projects, instead of maximizing the value of the corporation; * the cost borne by the voters of a polit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of Agent (economics), economic agents and how economy, economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements within economy, economies, including individual agents and market (economics), markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses economies as systems where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and Expenditure, investment expenditure interact; and the factors of production affecting them, such as: Labour (human activity), labour, Capital (economics), capital, Land (economics), land, and Entrepreneurship, enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that impact gloss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Board Of Directors
A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations (including the jurisdiction's corporate law) and the organization's own constitution and by-laws. These authorities may specify the number of members of the board, how they are to be chosen, and how often they are to meet. In an organization with voting members, the board is accountable to, and may be subordinate to, the organization's full membership, which usually elect the members of the board. In a stock corporation, non-executive directors are elected by the shareholders, and the board has ultimate responsibility for the management of the corporation. In nations with codetermination (such as Germany and Sweden), the workers of a corporation elect a set fraction of the board's members. The board of directors appoints the ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Andersen
Arthur Andersen LLP was an American accounting firm based in Chicago that provided auditing, tax advising, consulting and other professional services to large corporations. By 2001, it had become one of the world's largest multinational corporations and was one of the "Big Five" accounting firms (along with Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers). The firm collapsed by mid-2002, as details of its questionable accounting practices for energy company Enron and telecommunications company WorldCom were revealed amid the two high-profile bankruptcies. The scandals were a factor in the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. History Founding Born on May 30, 1885, in Plano, Illinois, and orphaned at the age of 16, Arthur E. Andersen began working as a mail boy by day and attended school at night, eventually being hired as the assistant to the comptroller of Allis-Chalmers in Chicago. In 1908, after attending courses at night while working f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Option (finance)
In finance, an option is a contract which conveys to its owner, the ''holder'', the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a specific quantity of an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified date, depending on the style of the option. Options are typically acquired by purchase, as a form of compensation, or as part of a complex financial transaction. Thus, they are also a form of asset (or contingent liability) and have a valuation that may depend on a complex relationship between underlying asset price, time until expiration, market volatility, the risk-free rate of interest, and the strike price of the option. Options may be traded between private parties in '' over-the-counter'' (OTC) transactions, or they may be exchange-traded in live, public markets in the form of standardized contracts. Definition and application An option is a contract that allows the holder the right to buy or sell an underlying asset or financia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enron
Enron Corporation was an American Energy development, energy, Commodity, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies at the time of the merger. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 20,600 staff and was a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper industry, pulp and paper company, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion during 2000. ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001, it was revealed that Enron's reported financial condition was sustained by an institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting scandals, accounting fraud, known since as the Enron scandal. Enron became synonymous with willful, institutional fraud and systemic Corporate crime, corruptio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privity Of Contract
The doctrine of privity of contract is a common law principle which provides that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations upon anyone who is not a party to that contract. It is related to, but distinct from, the doctrine of consideration, according to which a promise is legally enforceable only if valid consideration has been provided for it, and a plaintiff is legally entitled to enforce such a promise only if they are a promisee from whom the consideration has moved. A principal consequence of the doctrine of privity is that, at common law, a third party generally has no right to enforce a contract to which they are not a party, even where that contract was entered into by the contracting parties specifically for their benefit and with a common intention among all of them that they should be able to enforce it. In England & Wales and Northern Ireland, the doctrine has been substantially weakened by the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, which created a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shareholder Oppression
Shareholder oppression occurs when the majority shareholders in a corporation take action that unfairly prejudices the minority. It most commonly occurs in non-publicly traded companies, because the lack of a public market for shares leaves minority shareholders particularly vulnerable, since minority shareholders cannot escape mistreatment by selling their stock and exiting the corporation. The majority shareholders may harm the economic interests of the minority by refusing to declare dividends or attempting a squeezeout. The majority may physically lock the minority out of the corporate premises and even deny the minority the right to inspect corporate records and books, making it necessary for the minority to sue every time it wants to look at them. An important concept in law pertaining to shareholder oppression is the " reasonable expectations" of the minority shareholder. The "fair dealing" standard is also sometimes used by courts. The potential for shareholder oppression a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standing (law)
In law, standing or ''locus standi'' is a condition that a party seeking a legal remedy must show they have, by demonstrating to the court, sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. A party has standing in the following situations: * The party is directly subject to an adverse effect by the statute or action in question, and the harm suffered will continue unless the court grants relief in the form of damages or a finding that the law either does not apply to the party or that the law is void or can be nullified. In informal terms, a party must have something to lose. The party has standing because they will be directly harmed by the conditions for which they are asking the court for relief. * The party is not directly harmed by the conditions for which they are petitioning the court for relief but asks for it because the harm involved has some reasonable relation to their situation, and the continued exi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liquidator (law)
In law, a liquidator is the officer appointed when a company goes into winding-up or liquidation who has responsibility for collecting in all of the assets under such circumstances of the company and settling all claims against the company before putting the company into dissolution. Liquidator is a person officially appointed to 'liquidate' a company or firm. Their duty is to ascertain and settle the liabilities of a company or a firm. If there are any surplus, then those are distributed to the contributories. Origins In English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ..., the term "liquidator" was first used in the Joint Stock Companies Act 1856. Prior to that time, the equivalent role was fulfilled by "official managers" pursuant to the amendments to the Joint S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiduciary
A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (legal person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, for example, a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to another party, who, for example, has entrusted funds to the fiduciary for safekeeping or investment. Likewise, financial advisers, financial planners, and asset managers, including managers of pension plans, endowments, and other tax-exempt assets, are considered fiduciaries under applicable statutes and laws. In a fiduciary relationship, one person, in a position of vulnerability, justifiably vests confidence, good faith, reliance, and trust in another whose aid, advice, or protection is sought in some matter... In such a relation, good conscience requires the fiduciary to act at all times for the sole benefit and interest of the on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Law
Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on precedent—judicial rulings made in previous similar cases. The presiding judge determines which precedents to apply in deciding each new case. Common law is deeply rooted in Precedent, ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by things decided"), where courts follow precedents established by previous decisions. When a similar case has been resolved, courts typically align their reasoning with the precedent set in that decision. However, in a "case of first impression" with no precedent or clear legislative guidance, judges are empowered to resolve the issue and establish new precedent. The common law, so named because it was common to all the king's courts across England, originated in the practices of the courts of the English kings in the centuries fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adverse Selection
In economics, insurance, and risk management, adverse selection is a market situation where Information asymmetry, asymmetric information results in a party taking advantage of undisclosed information to benefit more from a contract or trade. In an ideal world, buyers should pay a price which reflects their willingness to pay and the value to them of the product or service, and sellers should sell at a price which reflects the quality of their goods and services. However, when one party holds information that the other party does not have, they have the opportunity to damage the other party by maximizing self-utility, concealing relevant information, and perhaps even lying. This opportunity has secondary effects: the party without the information may take steps to avoid entering into an unfair contract, perhaps by withdrawing from the interaction; a party may ask for higher or lower prices, diminishing the volume of trade in the market; or parties may be deterred from participatin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
