Business Law Prof Blog

Stetson Law Symposium: Elon Musk and the Law

Last Friday, I had the privilege of speaking, with other colleagues, at the 2023 Stetson Law Review Symposium on "Elon Musk and the Law."  (See the flyer on the program, below.)  This symposium grew out of a discussion group I organized at the 2022 Southeastern Association of Law Schools Conference.  I posted about it here back in May of last year.

I could not have been happier with the way the symposium worked out.  The Stetson Law students, faculty, and administration were well organized, kind, and fun--a total pleasure to work with.  And I got excellent questions and feedback on my early draft paper, Representing Elon Musk, which focuses attention on the lawyer-client relationship under the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct.  I look forward to seeing the final published proceedings in two forthcoming books of the Stetson Law Review.

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Wake Forest Law - ESG and Blockchain

I am honored to be speaking later today on ESG, blockchains, and corporate governance at this symposium at Wake Forest University School of Law.  This practitioner-centered symposium promises to offer significant information useful to my teaching and scholarship.  My fellow speakers hail from law firms and other organizations across the United States.  I am excited to share and learn!

"Keeping Your Own Counsel" - Walter Effross

Friend-of-the-BLPB Walter Effross recently informed me of his blog, Keeping Your Own Counsel (subtitled “Simple Strategies and Secrets for Success in Law School”). The blog is a companion piece to Walter's new book designed for pre-law and law students, also entitled Keeping Your Own Counsel. Walter let me know that one can check out the book’s table of contents, preface, and first two chapters through Amazon’s “Look inside” feature and that a summary of six of the book's themes is in his most recent blog post.

He also noted that his February 25th blog post provides links to his conversations with leading in-house and outside counsel about the definition and goals of, career opportunities in, and ways to remain current on, the increasingly relevant practice of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) law.  He specifically recommends one of those conversations--the one with Fox Rothschild LLP partner David Colvin--even to law students who are not specifically interested in ESG because it addresses practical ethical issues.  He indicated (and I agree) that the overall post may be of particular interest to our readers.  So many of us are focused on ESG and related regulation in our work at the moment . . . .

I send congratulations to Walter on the blog and the book, along with gratitude that he alerted us to both.

Lawyers, Law Students, and Mental Health

Warning: this post addresses suicide.

I was supposed to post yesterday about a different topic but I'm posting today and not next week because someone needs to read this today.

Maybe it's you. Maybe it's your "strong" friend or colleague.

I found out yesterday that I lost a former student to suicide. She lit up every room she walked into and inspired me, her classmates, and everyone she met. I had no idea she was living in such darkness. Lawyers, law students, compliance professionals, and others in high stress roles are conditioned to be on top of everything. We are the strong ones that clients and colleagues rely on. We worry so much about the stigma of not being completely in control at all times, that we don't get help. We worry that clients won't trust us with sensitive or important matters. We worry that we won't pass the character and fitness assessments to get admitted to the bar. 

The CDC released a report this week showing an alarming rise in depression, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety among our youth. The report noted that:

• Female students and LGBQ+ students are experiencing alarming rates of violence, poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
• The rates of experiencing bullying, sexual violence, poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors indicate a need for urgent intervention.

According to nami.org, one of the most respected organizations on the mental health:

1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year
1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year
1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year
50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among people aged 10-14 

Those statistics don't surprise me. I have a family member who lost his first friend to suicide at age 12 and has lost almost ten others in the past ten years to suicide or overdoses. I have other family members who have been hospitalized repeatedly for mental health crises and others who refused to get help and were homeless. When people ask my why I care so much about my students and coaching clients, this is why. It's personal for me.

It's why I got mental health first aid certified when the University of Miami offered the training to staff and professors and why I'm often the only lawyer in the room at conferences and trainings with social workers, neuroscientists, and therapists who are getting their certifications. I stay in my lane, of course. But I want to understand more and I want to do my part to help change the profession because lawyers are in the top 10 for rates of suicide. We have disproportionately higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. Although I've been a happy lawyer for over thirty years, I know I'm a unicorn.

So here are some resources. This list could be pages long so I've compiled links that also refer to other resources:

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

American Bar Association Mental Health Resources

Mental Health First Aid Training (I highly recommend this training and have completed it myself through my law school)

National Alliance on Mental Illness Resource Directory

Institute for Well Being in Law

Lawyer Assistance Programs by State

ABA Substance Use and Mental Health Toolkit for Law School Students and Those Who Care About Them

If you are a parent, especially of young children, get educated as soon as you can so that you can spot the signs early and support your children so they don't end up in these statistics. Ask your school administrators if they are familiar with the CDC's What Works in Schools Program.  Tell your school board and elected officials that mental health is a priority and vote for candidates who understand this as the public health crisis that it is. Sit down with your kids and watch The Social Dilemma. It may not change their addiction to social media, but it will help you understand why this generation is suffering so much that school districts have filed suit about the mental health impacts.

If you're a law student, check out the resources above. Don't get your health advice from TikTok or Instagram unless it's from a trained professional  (although I did do a TikTok video telling people to get help).

If you're a law professor, do you know where to send your students if they come to you seeking help? I have the cell phone number of our Dean of Students and I know I can reach out to her at any time if I'm worried about a student. I also share my family's story with my students so they feel safe asking for my guidance. I don't act as their therapist, but it's my job to prepare the students for the difficulties of the profession, and not just how to redline a document or argue a motion. 

If you're a law firm partner, consider investing in real training for your lawyers and your staff.  Don't just bring in someone to talk about mindfulness or diversity, equity, and inclusion once a year so you can check that box off. Invest in long-term, consistent, evidence-based training and coaching for your staff and lawyers at all levels (yes, managing partners too). Look at and reconfigure your billable hours requirements and layoff plans. Are they realistic? Are they really necessary? If you're comfortable, share your personal story of dealing with mental health challenges with your associates so they know you're human and have some empathy even as you have them billing over 2000 hours to get a bonus. 

If you're a general counsel, ask your firms about what they do to protect and preserve mental health, just like you ask about DEI initiatives. 

This is resource list is clearly just a start. What resources or tips do you have for those who are struggling in the profession? What will you today? If you do nothing else, share this message with others. It could be a matter of life or death for someone you know. 

Are People in the Tech Industry the Most Powerful People in the World? Part One

My mind is still reeling from my trip to Lisbon last week to keynote at the Building The Future tech conference sponsored by Microsoft.

My premise was that those in the tech industry are arguably the most powerful people in the world and with great power comes great responsibility and a duty to protect human rights (which is not the global state of the law).

I challenged the audience to consider the financial price of implementing human rights by design and the societal cost of doing business as usual.

In 20 minutes, I covered  AI bias and new EU regulations; the benefits and dangers of ChatGPT; the surveillance economy; the UNGPs and UN Global Compact; a new suit by Seattle’s school board against social media companies alleging harmful mental health impacts on students; potential corporate complicity with rogue governments; the upcoming Supreme Court case on Section 230 and content moderator responsibility for “radicalizing” users; and made recommendations for the governmental, business, civil society, and consumer members in the audience.

Thank goodness I talk quickly.

Here are some non-substantive observations and lessons. In a future post, I'll go in more depth about my substantive remarks. 

1. Your network is critical. Claire Bright, a business and human rights rock star, recommended me based on a guest lecture I did for her class. My law students are in for a treat when she speaks with them about the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (that she helped draft) next month.

2. Your social media profile is important. Organizers looked at videos that had nothing to do with this topic to see how I present on a stage. People are always watching.

3. Sometimes you can’t fake it until you make it. This is one of the few times where I didn’t know more than my audience about parts of my presentation. I prepared so that I could properly respect my audience’s expertise. For example, I watched 10 hours of video on a tech issue to prepare one slide just in case someone asked a question during the networking sessions.

4. Speak your truth. Going to a tech conference to tell tech people about their role in human rights and then going to a corporate headquarters to do the same isn’t easy, but it’s necessary and I had no filter or restrictions. I didn't hold back talking about Microsoft-backed ChatGPT even though they invited me to Lisbon for the conference. It was an honor to speak to Microsoft employees the day after the conference with Claire, Luis Amado, former head of B Lab Europe, and Susana Guedes to discuss sustainability, ESG, diversity, and incentivizing companies and employees to do the right thing, even when it's not popular.

5. Explore and leave the hotel even when you’re tired. I was feeling run down last Friday night and wanted to stay in bed with some room service. Manuela Doutel Haghighi (one of my new favorite people) organized a dinner at an Iranian restaurant owned by a former lawyer with 6 badass women, and I now have new colleagues and collaborators.

Stay tuned for my next post where I'll cover some of my remarks.

 

 

MLK and ESG

I have given several talks on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) matters in the past few months.  And, of course, it is a subject discussed in the classroom.  As we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today (and this week), I could not help but feel that his work provided a foundation for—somehow embraced—current ESG discussions and actions.  So, I went poking around on the Internet.

I guess I am not the only one who noticed this connection.

On the environmental part of ESG, Los Padres ForestWatch offers that:

Dr. King’s actions and teachings led to many important acts being passed in congress including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s through this work that Dr. King created a movement that was meant for us to understand how we are mutually tied together and that all life is interrelated. It’s this structure of thinking that has led many to believe that his work was the early structure for the Environmental Justice Movement. We see after Dr. King’s passing that environmentalists were able to pass the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act. All of which that had a direct effect on communities of color which are often marginalized and impacted heavily by climate change.

Yet, Dr. King's social issue impacts—including especially the social justice effects of his work—are far more central to communities and corporations.  Jeff Hilimire notes in a piece published on the Hands on Atlanta's website, that "[a]fter fighting for human rights for all Americans, Dr. King began to focus on employment and corporations as the next evolution of equality. He believed that companies have a responsibility to be forces of good in the world, and that their influence could make powerful change."  Finally, Natalie Runyon at Thomson Reuters Institute hints at governance accountability when she notes in an online article that, while Dr. King would view current ESG efforts favorably, "Dr. King . . . stated that words are not enough—action must follow, with measurement to demonstrate progress."

I will be giving Dr. King's connection to ESG more thought this week as we celebrate his legacy. But regardless of Dr. King's level of responsibility for ESG, his work resonates for me in ESG discussions and debates.

Can The Next Generation of Lawyers Save the World?

An ambitious question, yes, but it was the title of the presentation I gave at the Society for Socio-Economists Annual Meeting, which closed yesterday. Thanks to Stefan Padfield for inviting me.

In addition to teaching Business Associations to 1Ls this semester and running our Transactional Skills program, I'm also teaching Business and Human Rights. I had originally planned the class for 25 students, but now have 60 students enrolled, which is a testament to the interest in the topic. My pre-course surveys show that the students fall into two distinct camps. Most are interested in corporate law but didn't know even know there was a connection to human rights. The minority are human rights die hards who haven't even taken business associations (and may only learn about it for bar prep), but are curious about the combination of the two topics. I fell in love with this relatively new legal  field twelve years ago and it's my mission to ensure that future transactional lawyers have some exposure to it.

It's not just a feel-good way of looking at the world. Whether you love or hate ESG, business and human rights shows up in every factor and many firms have built practice areas around it. Just last week, the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive came into force. Like it or not, business lawyers must know something about human rights if they deal with any company that has or is part of a supply or value chain or has disclosure requirements. 

At the beginning of the semester, we discuss the role of the corporation in society. In many classes, we conduct simulations where students serve as board members, government officials, institutional investors, NGO leaders, consumers, and others who may or may not believe that the role of business is business. Every year, I also require the class to examine the top 10 business and human rights topics as determined by the Institute of Human Rights and Business (IHRB). In 2022, the top issues focused on climate change:

1. State Leadership-Placing people at the center of government strategies in confronting the climate crisis
2. Accountable Finance- Scaling up efforts to hold financial actors to their human rights and environmental responsibilities
3. Dissenting Voices- Ensuring developmental and environmental priorities do not silence land rights defenders and other critical voices
4. Critical Commodities- Addressing human rights risks in mining to meet clean energy needs
5. Purchasing Power- Using the leverage of renewable energy buyers to accelerate a just transition
6. Responsible Exits- Constructing rights-based approaches to buildings and infrastructure mitigation and resilience
7. Green Building- Building and construction industries must mitigate impacts while avoiding corruption, reducing inequality, preventing harm to communities, and providing economic opportunities
8. Agricultural Transitions- Decarbonising the agriculture sector is critical to maintaining a path toward limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees
9. Transforming Transport- The transport sector, including passenger and freight activity, remains largely carbon-based and currently accounts for approximately 23% total energy-related CO2 global greenhouse gas emissions
10. Circular Economy- Ensure “green economy” is creating sustainable jobs and protecting workers

The 2023 list departs from the traditional type of list and looks at the people who influence the decisionmakers in business. That's the basis of the title of this post and yesterday's presentation. The 2023 Top Ten are:

1. Strategic Enablers- Scrutinizing the role of management consultants in business decisions that harm communities and wider society. Many of our students work outside of the law as consultants or will work alongside consultants. With economic headwinds and recessionary fears dominating the headlines, companies and law firms are in full layoff season. What factors should advisors consider beyond financial ones, especially if the work force consists of primarily lower-paid, low-skilled labor, who may not be able to find new employment quickly? Or should financial considerations prevail?
2. Capital Providers- Holding investors to account for adverse impacts on people- More than 220 investors collectively representing US$30 trillion in assets under management  have signed a public statement acknowledging the importance of human rights impacts in investment and global prosperity. Many financial firms also abide by the Equator Principles, a benchmark that helps those involved in project finance to determine environmental and social impacts from financing. Our students will serve as counsel to banks,  financial firms, private equity, and venture capitalists. Many financial institutions traditionally focus on shareholder maximization but this could be an important step in changing that narrative. 
3. Legal Advisors- Establishing norms and responsible performance standards for lawyers and others who advise companies. ABA Model Rule 2.1 guides lawyers to have candid conversations that "may refer not only to law but to other considerations such as moral, economic, social and political factors, that may be relevant to the client's situation." Business and human rights falls squarely in that category. Additionally, the ABA endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ten years ago and released model supply chain contractual clauses related to human rights in 2021. Last Fall, the International Bar Association's Annual Meeting had a whole track directed to business and human rights issues. Our students advise on sanctions, bribery, money laundering, labor relations, and a host of other issues that directly impact human rights. I'm glad to see this item on the Top 10 list. 
4. Risk Evaluators- Reforming the role of credit rating agencies and those who determine investment worthiness of states and companies. Our students may have heard of S&P, Moody's, & Fitch but may not know of the role those entities played in the 2008 financial crisis and the role they play now when looking at sovereign debt.  If the analysis from those entities  are flawed or laden with conflicts of interest or lack of accountability, those ratings can indirectly impact the government's ability to provide goods and services for the most vulnerable citizens.
5. Systems Builders- Embedding human rights considerations in all stages of computer technology. If our students work in house or for governments, how can they advise tech companies working with AI, surveillance, social media, search engines and the spread of (mis)nformation? What ethical responsibilities do tech companies have and how can lawyers help them wrestle with these difficult issues?
6. City Shapers-  Strengthening accountability and transformation in real estate finance and construction. Real estate constitutes 60% of global assets. Our students need to learn about green finance, infrastructure spending, and affordable housing and to speak up when there could be human rights impacts in the projects they are advising on. 
7. Public Persuaders- Upholding standards so that advertising and PR companies do not undermine human rights. There are several legal issues related to advertising and marketing. Our students can also play a role in advising companies, in accordance with ethical rule 2.1, about persuaders presenting human rights issues and portraying controversial topics related to gender, race, indigenous peoples, climate change in a respectful and honest manner. 
8. Corporate Givers- Aligning philanthropic priorities with international standards and the realities of the most vulnerable. Many large philanthropists look at charitable giving as investments (which they are) and as a way to tackle intractable social problems. Our students can add a human rights perspective as advisors, counsel, and board members to ensure that organizations give to lesser known organizations that help some of the forgotten members of society. Additionally, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer note that a shared-value approach, "generat[es] economic value in a way that also produces value for society by addressing its challenges. A shared value approach reconnects company success with social progress. Firms can do this in three distinct ways: by reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and building supportive industry clusters at the company's locations." Lawyers can and should play a role in this. 
9. Business Educators- Mainstreaming human rights due diligence into management, legal, and other areas of academic training. Our readers teaching in business and law schools and focusing on ESG can discuss business and human rights under any of the ESG factors. If you don't know where to start, the ILO has begun signing MOUs with business schools around the world to increase the inclusion of labor rights in business school curricula. If you're worried that it's too touchy feely to discuss or that these topics put you in the middle of the ESG/anti-woke debate, remember that many of these issues relate directly to enterprise risk management- a more palatable topic for most business and legal leaders. 
10. Information Disseminators- Ensuring that journalists, media, and social media uphold truth and public interest. A couple of years ago, "fake news" was on the Top 10 and with all that's going on in the world with lack of trust in the media and political institutions, lawyers can play a role in representing reporters and media outlets. Similarly, lawyers can explain the news objectively and help serve as fact checkers when appearing in news outlets.

If you've made it to the end of this post, you're either nodding in agreement or shaking your head violently in disagreement. I expect many of my students will feel the same, and I encourage that disagreement. But it's my job to expose students to these issues. As they learn about ESG from me and the press, it's critical that they disagree armed with information from all sides.

So can the next generation of lawyers save the world? Absolutely yes, if they choose to. 

Give Yourself the Gift of Understanding Contract Drafting and Negotiation In Miami or Virtually February 2023

It's the holidays and it's time to treat yourself and members of your team to practical training and fantastic networking in sunny Miami in February. We don't have bomb cyclones down here. The Transactional Skills Program at the University of Miami School of Law couldn't be more excited to host the How to Contract Conference from February 15-17, 2023. 

• ContractsCon is a training and networking EXTRAVAGANZA focused on the practical contract drafting and negotiating skills that in-house counsel and contracts professionals need to know. 
• This event is a zero-fluff, to-the-point training on the nitty-gritty details. ContractsCon includes:
  • speakers who get the in-house experience and can explain why we draft the way we do
  • training centered around provision-level playbooks for you and your company to use when you return to work
  • workshops that provide a deeper dive into more nuanced topics and include interactive group activities
  • ContractsCon Playbook, featuring the advice and drafting approaches discussed at ContractsCon
  • access to How to Contract’s SaaS Contracts Training Library, with 20+ hours of training videos, the Cloud Services Agreement Playbook, and lots more (through March 31, 2023)
  • CLE pending in 26 states for up to 7 hours for virtual ticket holders and up to 13 hours for in-person attendees
• ContractsCon is an annual training and networking event for in-house counsel and  contract professionals presented by How to Contract and Law Insider and hosted by University of Miami School of Law. This 2-day event will feature over 20 live training sessions with some of the most well-known contract experts.
• Our promise is to share with you the core skills and expertise you need to work in-house on commercial contracts. All you have to do is show up ready to learn.
• ContractsCon is designed for in-house lawyers and professionals who want to learn:
  • the insights and techniques needed to handle the commercial contracts filling their inbox every day,
  • how experienced lawyers manage risk, work efficiently, and make the hard decisions in challenging circumstances,
  • WHAT to say, WHY to say it that way, and HOW to reach the best-negotiated deal you can with your contract counterparties.
• Give us two days of your time and you'll walk away with enhanced skills that enable you to better protect your company and clients. You'll gain more confidence.  You'll finally leave those "I don't know" and "I'm not sure" frustrations behind you. You'll also be able to network with other lawyers and professionals who share your desire to improve your skills and overcome any traces of imposter syndrome. 

Click here to get your ticket. And I'll see you in Miami, mojito in hand (after I do my session, of course).

Victoria's Secret: The Song and the Business

Posting something light tonight . . . .

I have found myself fascinated listening to Jax's recent hit "Victoria's Secret," a clever pop ballad about female body image concerns and intimates retailer Victoria's Secret.  The refrain is catchy and, itself, tells a story--a business story.

I know Victoria's secret
And, girl, you wouldn't believe
She's an old man who lives in Ohio
Making money off of girls like me"
Cashin' in on body issues
Sellin' skin and bones with big boobs
I know Victoria's secret
She was made up by a dude (dude)
Victoria was made up by a dude (dude)
Victoria was made up by a dude

Because I knew some of the history of the Victoria's Secret business, I understood that the allusion to the "old man who lives in Ohio"--the "dude"--is a reference to Leslie Wexner, the founder of L Brands (earlier famous for owning major brands like The Limited, Express, and Abercrombie & Fitch, as well as Victoria's Secret).  Victoria's Secret became an independent publicly traded firm, Victoria's Secret & Co., last year through a tax-free spin-off from L Brands (now known as Bath & Body Works, Inc.).  From the Victoria's Secret & Co. website:

On August 3, 2021, L Brands (NYSE: LB) completed the separation of the Victoria’s Secret business into an independent, public company through a tax-free spin-off to L Brands shareholders. The new company, named Victoria’s Secret & Co., includes Victoria’s Secret Lingerie, PINK and Victoria’s Secret Beauty. Victoria’s Secret & Co. is a NYSE listed company trading under the ticker symbol VSCO.

In conjunction with this announcement, L Brands changed its name to Bath & Body Works, Inc. and now trades under the ticker symbol BBWI.

According to (among other sources) a Newsweek piece from last summer, Wexner did not found Victoria's Secret.  He bought it in 1982 from the founder.  However, he did elevate the brand to cult status and financial success.  So, one might say that he did "make up" Victoria (as she is conceptualized in the song's lyrics). 

Having said that, it also seems fair to note that Ed Razek, long-time L Brands chief marketing officer, is credited (in that same Newsweek article) with overseeing the iconic Victoria's Secret fashion shows that ran from 1995 to 2018.  In the minds of many, these fashion shows created--or at least popularized--the image of the Victoria in Jax's lyrics ("skin and bones with big boobs").

Victoria's Secret & Co. has been working to change its image.  Its website includes value statements consistent with greater inclusion and features some photos of nontraditional intimates models--models that are not reflective of the Victoria described in the "Victoria's Secret" song lyrics.  Moreover, the Victoria's Secret & Co. CEO reportedly reached out to Jax to thank her for highlighting body image issues through her song.

With the craziness of current business stories, grading, and the holiday season, this post is designed to offer some amusement (if not educational value).  I have endeavored to ensure that BLPB readers now know Victoria's Secret--the company--a bit better.  I also hope you enjoy the Jax song and appreciate its encouragement of positive body image.

FIFA, ESG, and BS

I'm a huge football fan. I mean real football-- what people in the US call soccer. I went to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014 twice and have watched as many matches on TV as I could during the last tournament and this one. In some countries, over half of the residents watch the matches when their team plays even though most matches happen during work hours or the middle of the night in some countries. NBC estimates that 5 billion people across the world will watch this World Cup with an average of 227 million people a day. For perspective, roughly 208 million people, 2/3 of the population, watched Superbowl LVI in the US, which occurs on a Sunday.

Football is big business for FIFA and for many of its sponsors. Working with companies such as Adidas, Coca-Cola, Hyundai / KIA, Visa, McDonald's, and Budweiser has earned nonprofit FIFA a record 7.5 billion in revenue for this Cup. Fortunately for Budweiser, which paid 75 million to sponsor the World Cup, Qatar does not ban alcohol. But in a plot twist, the company had to deal with a last-minute stadium ban. FIFA was more effective in Brazil, which has banned beer in stadiums since 2003 to curb violence. The ban was temporarily lifted during the 2014 Cup. I imagine this made Budweiser very happy. I know the fans were. 

This big business is a big part of the reason that FIFA has been accused of rampant corruption in the award of the Cup to Russia and Qatar, two countries with terrible human rights records. The Justice Department investigated and awarded FIFA hundreds of millions as a victim of its past leadership's actions related to the 2018 and 2022 selections. Amnesty International has called these games the "World Cup of Shame" because of the use of forced labor, exorbitant recruitment fees, seizure of passports, racism, delayed payments of $220 per month, and deaths. Raising even more awareness, more than 40 million people have watched comedian John Oliver's 2014 , 2015, and 2022 takedowns of FIFA. 

The real victims of FIFA's corruption are the millions of migrant workers operating under Qatar's kafala system. I remember sitting at a meeting at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva when an NGO accused the Qatar government of using slaves to build World Cup Stadiums. I also remember both FIFA and the International Olympic Committee pledging to consider human rights when selecting sites in the future. Indeed, FIFA claims that human rights were a "key factor" when choosing the Americas to host the 2026 Cup. 

With all of the talk about ESG including human rights and anti-discrimination from FIFA, Coca Cola, Budweiser and others related to the World Cup, how do those pronouncements square with FIFA's ban on team captains wearing the One Love Rainbow Arm Band?  Qatar has banned same sex relations  so seven EU team captains had planned to wear the arm bands as a gesture to "send a message against discrimination of any kind as the eyes of the world fall on the global game."  This was on brand with FIFA 's own  strong and repeated statements against racism after several African players suffered from taunts and chants from fans in stadiums. FIFA reiterated its stance after the death of George Floyd. Just today, FIFA issued another statement against discrimination, noting that over 55% of players received some kind of discriminatory online abuse during the Euro 2020 Final and AFCON 2022 Final.

It's curious then that despite FIFA's and the EU team's pledges about anti-discrimination, just three hours before a match, the teams confirmed that they would not wear the arm bands after all.  Apparently, they learned that players could face yellow card sanctions if they wore them. Qatar also bans advocacy and protests about same sex relationships. Unlike the stadium beer ban, this wasn't new.

And the human rights abuse allegations against FIFA aren't new. I've blogged about FIFA and the issues I encountered when meeting human rights activists in Brazil several times including here. So I will end with the questions I asked years ago about FIFA and its sponsors and add the answers as I know them today. 

1)   Is FIFA, the nonprofit corporation, really acting as a quasi-government and if so, what are its responsibilities to protect and respect local communities under UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights? Answer: FIFA has pledged to comport with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, but its arm band ban shows otherwise. 

2)   Does FIFA have more power than the host country and will it use that power when it requires voters to consider a bidding country’s human rights record in the future? Answer: See the answer to #3. Also, it will be interesting to see what FIFA demands of 2026 host Florida, a state which is divesting of funds with a focus on ESG and which has proposed anti-ESG legislation.  

3)   If Qatar remains the site of the 2022 Cup after the various bribery and human rights abuse investigations, will FIFA force that country to make concessions about alcohol and gender roles to appease corporate sponsors? Answer: Nope

4)   Will/should corporate sponsors feel comfortable supporting the Cup in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 given those countries’ records and the sponsors’ own CSR priorities? Answer: Yep, despite public statements to the contrary. It's just too lucrative. 

5)   Does FIFA’s antidiscrimination campaign extend beyond racism to human rights or are its own actions antithetical to these rights? Answer: Yes the campaign does but again, the arm band ban shows otherwise. 

6)   Are the sponsors commenting publicly on the protests and human right violations? Should they and what could they say that has an impact? Should they have asked for or conducted a social impact analysis or is their involvement as sponsors too attenuated for that? Answer: Amnesty International is seeking corporate support for compensation reform, but hasn't been very successful.

7)   Should socially responsible investors ask questions about whether companies could have done more for local communities by donating to relevant causes as part of their CSR programs? Answer: In my view, yes. The UN has guidance on this as well. 

8)   Are corporations acting as "bystanders", a term coined by Professor Jena Martin?  Answer: Yes. 

9)   Is the International Olympic Committee, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, taking notes? Answer: Yes. Despite or perhaps because of the outrage over selecting China for the Olympics, the IOC has recently approved a Strategic Framework on Human Rights.

10)  Do consumers, the targets of creative corporate commercials and  viral YouTube videos, care about any of this? Answer: It depends on the demographics, but I would say no. How do I know this? Because I teach and write about business and human rights and I have still scheduled my grading of exams and meetings around the World Cup. Advertisers can't miss out on having 25% of the world's eyeballs on their products.  And FIFA knows that the human rights noise will all go away for most fans as soon as the referee blows the whistle to start the match.

In any event, my business and human rights students will enjoy grappling with the ugly side of the beautiful game next semester as we work on proposals for the city of Miami to live up to its 2021 commitments to human rights whether FIFA does or not.

Why the Judge Was Right to Rule Against DeSantis' Stop WOKE Act

As much as I love being a professor, it can be hard. I’m not talking about the grading, keeping the attention of the TikTok generation, or helping students with the rising mental health challenges.

I mean that it’s hard to know what to say in a classroom. On the one hand, you want to make sure that students learn and understand the importance of critical thinking and disagreeing without being disagreeable.

On the other hand, you worry about whether a factual statement taken out of context or your interpretation of an issue could land you in the cross hairs of cancel culture without the benefit of any debate or discussion.

I’m not an obvious person who should be worried about this. Although I learned from some of the original proponents of critical race theory in law school, that’s not my area of expertise. I teach about ESG, corporate law, and compliance issues.

But I think about this dilemma when I talk about corporate responsibility and corporate speech on hot button issues. I especially think about it when I teach business and human rights, where there are topics that may be too controversial to teach because some issues are too close to home and for many students and faculty members, it’s difficult to see the other side. So I sometimes self censor.

My colleagues who teach in public universities in Florida had even more reason to self censor because of the Stop WOKE act, which had eight topics related to race, gender, critical race theory and other matters that the State deemed “noxious” or problematic.

Yesterday, a federal court issued a 139-page opinion calling the law “dystopian.” The court noted that Justice Sotomayor could violate the law by guest lecturing in a law school and reading from her biography where she talks about how she benefitted from affirmative action. That’s absurd.

I had the chance to give my views to the Washington Post yesterday. This law never personally affected me but as the court noted, the university is the original marketplace of ideas. I told the reporter that one of my areas of expertise, ESG, is full of the kinds of issues that the government of the State of Florida has issues with. I told him that I was glad that I worked at a private university because academic freedom makes me more comfortable to raise issues.  I noted that students need the ability to play devil's advocate and speak freely because there's no way to mold the next generation of thinkers and lawmakers without free speech. I explained that you can't write the laws if you're not willing to hear more than one point of view. 

I hope that we get back to the days when professors don’t self censor, whether there’s a law in place or not. Of course there are some statements that are unacceptable and should never be taught in a classroom.

But I worry that some in this generation don’t know the difference between controversial and contemptible. That goes for my friends of all ideologies.

I worry that some students are missing out on so much because our society doesn’t know how to engage in civil discourse about weighty topics. So people either rant or stay silent.

In any event, my rant is over.

Today is a day for celebration.

Congratulations to my colleagues in public universities.

Reason has won out.

How Generation, Nationality, and Expertise Influence Stakeholder Prioritization of Tech Social Issues- Pt. 2

Last month, I posted about an experiment I conducted with students and international lawyers. I’ve asked my law student, Kaitlyn Jauregui to draft this post summarizing the groups’ reasoning and provide her insights. Next week, I’ll provide mine in light of what I’m hearing at various conferences, including this week’s International Bar Association meeting. This post is in her words.

After watching The Social Dilemma, participants completed a group exercise by deciding which social issues were a priority in the eyes of different tech industry stakeholders. The Social Dilemma is a 2020 docudrama that exposes how social media controls that influences the behavior, mental health, and political views of users by subjecting them to various algorithms. Director Jeff Orlowski interviewed founding and past tech employees of some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley to bring awareness to viewers.  

Groups of primarily American college students, primarily American law students, one group of Latin American lawyers, and one group of international lawyers completed the exercise. Each of the groups deliberated from the perspective of a CEO, investor, consumer, or NGO.  Acting as that stakeholder, the team then ranked the following issues in order of importance: Incitements to violence, Labor Issues, Suppression of Speech, Mental Health, Surveillance, and Fake News. 

How The Groups Performed

The college students attend an American law school, but they are not necessarily all American. The groups’ logic behind their rankings could not be provided. I provided the rankings in the last post.

Law Students

The law students attend and American law school, but they are not necessarily all American. They considered six social issues.

Team CEO: Law Students

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Surveillance

3.    Mental Health

4.    Fake News

5.    Suppression of Speech

6.    Incitements to Violence

The law students assigned to view the issues as a CEO based their rankings on an internal to external approach. They believed the CEO is responsible for the operations of the company so would first try to solve internal issues such as labor issues because that would directly affect the bottom line. Surveillance and mental health ranked #2 because the team assumed that these issues directly related to customer satisfaction and retention. Because this group took on the role as a tech CEO and not a social media CEO, they did not view 4-6 as important. Fake news was only relevant if it was about the company. Suppression of speech was not problematic to them because it would not directly impact their business. Finally, they did not view incitement to violence as relevant to the business operations so ranked it last.

Team Investor: Law Students

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Incitements to Violence

3.    Surveillance

4.    Suppression of Speech

5.    Fake News

6.    Mental Health

The law students who prioritized social issues as if they were an Investor approached the task considering market forces. They chose labor issues first because it poses challenges to business operations. Whatever looks bad for revenue generation such as incitement to violence and surveillance means their investment would look bad as well. It is important to note they viewed this assignment as an institutional investor. The remaining factors were not imperative to the success of the tech company so were ranked lower.

Team NGO: Law Students

1.    Fake News

2.    Incitement to Violence

3.    Mental Health

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    Surveillance

6.    Suppression of Speech

The law students who took on a role as an NGO based their sense of urgency on the danger and risks the involved in each issue. At the top was fake news because they thought misinformation when taken as fact was unhealthy for making decisions and forming opinions. Incitement to violence closely followed because political polarization can lead to hateful actions outside of social media. They found mental health to be important because of statistics showing teens committing self-harm or worse as a result of social media use. Although labor Issues are abroad, the NGO team could not ignore it. Surveillance was not key to them because they believed platforms are already taking measures against it. And lastly, suppression of speech was not as important to them as deleting hate speech and fake news.

Team Consumer: Law Students

1.    Surveillance

2.    Mental Health

3.    Incitement to Violence

4.    Suppression of Speech

5.    Fake News

6.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

The law students who took on their natural roles as consumers found social issues more important than financial forces. They referred to the many advertisements that tech companies like Apple and Google are posting against surveillance. The effects of social media on mental health and even physical health also stood out to them. As a group of law students, they are informed individuals who can spot fake news so did not see that as a priority. Lastly, labor issues are not in the consumers’ sight so are out of mind and therefore not a priority.

Latin American Lawyers

*The Latin American Lawyers did not consider Fake News or Incitements to Violence.

Team CEO: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Surveillance

3.    Suppression of Speech

4.    Mental Health

5.    -

6.    -

The Latin American lawyers ranked the social issues regarding business success and long-term goals. Labor issues were their top concern because it influences the legal challenges faced by the company and the costs of production. “Information is power” so surveillance restrictions would greatly decrease money earned from selling data gathered. They did not see suppression of speech as an issue because the company itself is not limited. Mental health was ultimately last because it does not impair business operations.

Team Investor: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Mental Health

2.    Surveillance

3.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

4.    Suppression of Speech

5.    -

6.    -

The Latin American lawyers listed their priorities as a socially responsible Investor. Mental health triggered the most urgency for them because the negative influence of social media on users is growing and is not slowing down. Heavy surveillance conflicts with the rights of persons like themselves so it is a great risk for them. Although labor issues were important, they did not think of it as a widespread issue affecting large populations of people. Lastly, suppression of speech was not a concern at all for them.

Team NGO: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Surveillance

2.    Suppression of Speech / Fake News

3.    Mental Health

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    -

6.    -

The Latin American lawyers who participated as an NGO focused their efforts on user experience and rights. They found surveillance to be a growing concern and a human right violation for users. Suppression of speech was also very important to them, especially in the scope of the team’s nationality because of political distress in their home countries. For countries with political instability, their citizens are more conscious of infringed rights through social media. Fake news and censorship on virtual platforms can ultimately destroy the democracy of countries in their point of view. The team preferred life over work so chose to rank mental health higher than labor issues.

Team Consumer: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Surveillance

2.    Suppression of Speech / Fake News

3.    Mental Health

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    -

6.    -

The Latin American lawyers used their personal perspective as consumers to rank in accordance with social concerns. Surveillance was seen as a major problem because it makes users uncomfortable knowing that their activity is tracked and sold as data. Suppression of speech was grouped with fake news as an important issue regarding the rights and freedom of the consumers. The gatekeeping of information from mainstream media in general was a concern for these consumers because they feel as if they are being controlled and concealed from the truth. Although the negative mental health results on teens from social media is important, the consumers thought this was the responsibility of parents and not of other consumers. Labor issues were of no concern because the consumers felt as if they have no control over the matter. 

International Lawyers

The International Group comprised of participants from Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Jamaica, Mexico, Nepal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. The group was not assigned to rank Mental Health as a social issue. The groups’ logic behind their rankings could not be provided.

Team CEO: International Lawyers

1.    Fake News

2.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

3.    Surveillance

4.    Incitement to Violence

5.    Suppression of Speech

6.    -

Team Investor: International Lawyers (Socially Responsible)

1.    Incitement to Violence

2.    Fake News

3.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

4.    Surveillance

5.    Suppression of Speech

6.    -

Team Investor: International Lawyers (Institutional)

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Incitements to Violence

3.    Suppression of Speech

4.    Fake News

5.    Surveillance

6.    -

Team NGO: International Lawyers

1.    Fake News

2.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

3.    Suppression of Speech

4.    Incitements to Violence

5.    Surveillance

6.    -

 

Team Consumer: International Lawyers

1.    Incitements to Violence

2.    Suppression of Speech

3.    Fake News

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    Surveillance

6.    -

 Insights

When given a business or financial oriented role, the teams ranked the social issues by focusing on whether it impacts company performance. Teams with community or advocate roles tended to rank the social issues according to impact on society. Team CEO prioritized labor issues and surveillance the most. Labor issues along with incitements to violence were of top concern for Team Investor. Fake news was the number one issue for Team NGO. Team Consumer, which reflects the average personal view of the participants, believed incitements to violence and surveillance were the most pressing social issues in the tech industry. Labor issues were the least important to the consumer participants, which is interesting in scope of consumer purchase decisions overall and not just in tech.

The Team Consumer data is reflective of each of the groups’ personal beliefs because all participants are also consumers. The College Students prioritized mental health. Both the law students and the Latin American lawyers found surveillance the most important tech issue. International lawyers instead thought incitement to violence more pressing. A possible explanation is that people in the U.S. and Latin America are trying to protect their privacy from intrusive technology. Because the international lawyers had participants from countries where incitement to violence are occurring, that may be why it was important to them.

Suppression of speech closely followed for Latin American Lawyers and International Lawyers whereas Mental Health was the second priority for the primarily American law Students. Many citizens of countries around the globe face oppressive governments that censor speech which may be influential in why Suppression of Speech was ranked highly. In the United States, citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech and press which is why this issue may not be as concerning for them. American teens also suffer from more mental illness as a result of social media use, possibly why it is second place.

Practices in corporate culture and opinions on social issues are influenced by the ethnic makeup of the employees. Although the stakeholder roles the groups took are the most determinative factor, their nationality is naturally a bias in their decision-making.

The Lewis Model is a triangular spectrum that identifies the prominent features of different cultures. Richard Lewis spoke 10 languages, visited 135 countries, and work in over 20 of them to find observable variability in social behavior. He recognized that stereotypes are unfair, but also emphasized that social norms are standards in each country. There are three defined points of culture: Linear Active, Multi-active, and Reactive.

• Linear actives — those who plan, arrange, organize, do one thing at a time, follow action chains. They are truthful rather than diplomatic and do not fear confrontation. Their work and as well as personal life is based on logic rather than emotions. Linear actives like facts, fixed agenda and they are very job oriented. They are able to separate social-private and professional life.

• Multi-actives — people belonging to this cultural category are able to do many things at once, planning their priorities not according to a time schedule, but according to the relative thrill or importance that each appointment brings with it. These cultures are very talkative and impulsive. These characteristics predict their orientation on people. They feel uncomfortable in silence. Multi-active people prefer face to face sessions.

• Reactives — member of this group has in the priority list courtesy and respect on the top. This group is best listening culture. Listening quietly, reacting calmly and carefully to the other side's proposals are their traits as well. Reactive cultures are the world’s best listeners in as much as they concentrate on what the speaker is saying, do not interrupt a speaker while the discourse or presentation is on-going. Reactive people have large reserves of energy. Reactives tend to use names less frequently than other cultural categories.

How does the Lewis Model explain the results?

The primarily American college and law students fall under linear-active with their priorities aligned with individual rights and performance.

The Latin American lawyers are multi-active, think about the social issues in terms of impact on the community and on building relationships.

The International lawyers are comprised of participants all over the world, bringing in aspects from all over the spectrum.

The Lewis Model most likely plays a part in how each participant individually arrived at their own rankings and how they then communicated to agree on a reflective ranking together. The conversations guiding to the final result would have probably shown more insight as to how and why these social issues are important.

Age

The age of the participants is another influential factors because of the generational variation in trust in surveilling technologies. Generation Z, Millennials, and Generation X+ were asked in a survey how comfortable they felt with programs like Alexa or Siri on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being very and 10 being not.

Generation Z: 7.73

Millennials: 8.28

Generation X+: 8.90

Older generations are more uneasy about virtual assistant technology.

With age comes more experience and better foresight. Researchers in Texas found that “older adults use the experience in decision-making accumulated over their lifetime to determine the long-term utility and not just the immediate benefit before making a choice. However, younger adults tend to focus their decision-making on instant gratification.”

How does age explain the results?

The majority of the college and law students were Generation Z or Millennials whereas the practicing attorneys were mostly Millennials or more senior.

As generations progress, younger people are more comfortable with surveillance technology than older people.

Expertise

Expertise of the participants surely impacted how they ranked social issues. The knowledge of experts in comparison to novices gives them a wider and practical approach to business and social issues. Here are some key aspects:

1. Experts notice features and meaningful patterns of information that are not noticed by novices.
2. Experts have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that is organized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of their subject matter.
3. Experts’ knowledge cannot be reduced to sets of isolated facts or propositions but, instead, reflects contexts of applicability: that is, the knowledge is “conditionalized” on a set of circumstances.
4. Experts are able to flexibly retrieve important aspects of their knowledge with little attentional effort.
5. Though experts know their disciplines thoroughly, this does not guarantee that they are able to teach others.
6. Experts have varying levels of flexibility in their approach to new situations.

Perhaps the practicing attorneys foresaw further down the line as to why one social issue was more pressing than another.

Thank you, Kaitlyn for providing your analysis of the results. Next week, I’ll provide mine.

How Generation, Nationality, and Expertise Influence Stakeholder Prioritization of ESG Issues Pt. 1

You can’t read the business press without seeing some handwringing about ESG. It’s probably why I’ve been teaching, advising, and sitting on a lot more panels about the topic lately. Like it or not, it’s here to stay (at least for now) so I decided to do a completely unscientific experiment on lawyer and law student perceptions of ESG using a class simulation. Over the past three months, I’ve used the topic of tech companies and human rights obligations to demonstrate how the “S” factor plays out in real life. I used the same simulation for foreign lawyers in UM’s US Law in Action program, college students who participated in UM’s Summer Legal Academy, Latin American lawyers studying US Business Entities, and my own law students in my Regulatory Compliance, Corporate Governance, and Sustainability class at the University of Miami.

Prior to the simulation, I required the students to watch The Social Dilemma,  the Netflix documentary about the potentially dangerous effects of social media on individuals and society at large. I also lectured on the shareholder v. stakeholder debate; the role of investors, consumers, NGOs, and governments in shaping the debate about ESG; and the basics of business and human rights. Within business and human rights, we looked at labor, surveillance, speech, and other human rights issues that tech and social media companies may impact.

Participants completed a prioritization exercise based on their assigned roles as either CEO, investor, government, NGO, consumer, or influencer. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison because some groups did not look at all of the issues and some had different stakeholders. In this post, I will provide the results. In a future post, I’ll provide some thoughts and analysis.

The topics for prioritization were:

Labor- in complex global supply chains that often employ workers in developing countries, how much responsibility should companies bear for forced labor particularly for Uyghur labor in China and child labor in global mining and supply chains? What about the conditions in factories and warehouses before and during the COVID era? 

Surveillance- how much responsibility do tech companies bear for the (un)ethical use of AI and surveillance of citizens and employees?

Mental Health- how much should companies care about the impact of the “like” button and the role social media plays in bullying, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, addiction, and suicide, especially among pre-teens and teens?

Fake News- should a social media company allow information on platforms that is demonstrably false? What if allowing fake news is profitable because it keeps more eyeballs on the page and thus raises ad revenue? Should Congress repeal Section 230?

Incitement to violence- what responsibilities do social media companies have when content leads to violence? We specifically looked at some of the issues with Meta (Facebook) and India, but we also examined this more broadly.

Suppression of Speech- should a social media company ever suppress speech? This was closely related to fake news and the incitement to violence prompt and some groups combined these.  

The Rankings

 

International Lawyers (approximately 40 total participants)

The international lawyer group consisted of participants from Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Jamaica, Mexico, Nepal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. The group was not assigned to rank mental health as a social issue.

CEO:

1. Fake news
2. Labor
3. Surveillance
4. Incitement to violence
5. Suppression of speech

Socially responsible investors:

1. Incitement to violence
2. Fake news
3. Labor
4. Surveillance
5. Suppression of speech

Institutional investors:

1. Labor
2. Incitement to violence
3. Suppression of speech
4. Fake news
5. Surveillance

NGO:

1. Fake news
2. Labor
3. Suppression of speech
4. Incitement to violence
5. Surveillance

Consumers:

1. Incitement to violence
2. Suppression of speech
3. Fake news
4. Labor
5. Surveillance

Latin American Lawyers (approximately 10 total participants)

The Latin American lawyers combined fake news and incitements to violence with suppression of speech.

 CEOs:

1. Labor
2. Surveillance
3. Suppression of speech
4. Mental health

Investors (they chose socially responsible investors):

1. Mental health
2. Surveillance
3. Labor
4. Suppression of speech

NGO:

1. Surveillance
2. Suppression of speech
3. Mental health
4. Labor

Consumers:

1. Surveillance
2. Suppression of speech
3. Mental health
4. Labor

 

Law Students (approximately 52 total participants)

The law students considered six social issues. Several are LLMs or not from the United States, although they attend school at University of Miami.

CEOs:

1. Labor
2. Surveillance
3. Mental Health
4. Fake News
5. Suppression of Speech
6. Incitements to Violence

Investors:

1. Labor
2. Incitements to violence
3. Surveillance
4. Suppression of speech
5. Fake news
6. Mental health

NGO:

1. Fake news
2. Incitement to violence
3. Mental health
4. Labor
5. Surveillance
6. Suppression of speech

Consumers:

1. Surveillance
2. Mental Health
3. Incitement to Violence
4. Suppression of speech
5. Fake news
6. Labor

College Students

Given how little work experience this group had, I divided them into groups of CEOs, investors (no split between institutional and socially responsible investors), members of Congress, social media influencers, and consumers. They also combined suppression of speech, fake news, and incitement to violence in one category.

            CEOs:

1. Speech
2. Surveillance
3. Labor issues
4. Mental health ramifications

            Investors:

1. Labor issues
2. Speech
3. Surveillance
4. Mental Health

            Congress:

1. Speech
2. Surveillance
3. Labor
4. Mental Health

     Consumers:

1. Mental Health
2. Speech
3. Labor
4. Surveillance

            Influencers:

1. Mental Health
2. Speech
3. Labor
4. Surveillance

What does this all mean? To be honest, notwithstanding my sophisticated, clickbait blog title, I have no idea. Further, with two of the groups, English was not the first language for most of the participants. Obviously, the sample sizes are too small to be statistically significant. I have thoughts, though, and will post them next week. If you have theories based on the demographics, I would love to hear your comments. 

Practical Tips for Teaching or Training Adult Learners

Millions of law school graduates around the US just took the bar exam. Others are preparing to enter colleges and graduates schools in a few weeks. How will these respective groups do? While a lot depends on how much and how well they study, a large part of their success or failure may depend on how they've been taught. I recently posted about how adults learn and what the research says we should do differently. In this post, I'll show how I used some of the best practices in the last ten days when I taught forty foreign lawyers from around the world  and thirty college students in separate summer courses offered by the University of Miami as well as nine Latin American lawyers who were taking courses in business law from a Panamanian school. I taught these disparate groups about ESG, disclosures, and human rights. With each of the cohorts, I conducted a simulation where I divided them into groups to prioritize issues based on whether they were a CEO, an investor, a consumer, the head of an NGO, and for the US college students, I added the roles of a member of Congress or influencer. In a future post, I will discuss how the groups prioritized the issues based on their demographics. Fascinating stuff. 

Depending on what you read, there are six key principles related to adult learning:

1. It seems obvious, but adults need to know why they should learn something. Children learn because they are primed to listen to authority figures. Too often in law school or corporate training, there's no correlation to what they learn and what they actually do. When I taught the two groups of foreign lawyers, I talked about the reality and the hype about ESG and how the topic could arise in their practices with specific examples. When I spoke to the college students who were considering law school, I focused on their roles and responsibilities as current consumers and as the future investors, legislators, and heads of NGOs. Same powerpoint but different emphasis.

2. Adults are self-directed. Under one definition, "self-directed learning describes a process by which individuals take the initiative, with or without the assistance of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes." This may seem radical because many of my colleagues complain that today's students need a lot of hand holding and spoon feeding, and I agree to some extent. But I also think that we don't give students enough credit and we underestimate them. I developed my curriculum for the practicing lawyers but I also asked what they wanted to learn and what would be most useful for them. I only had a few hours with them, so I wasn't able to explore this much as I would have. But in some of my traditional courses at the law school and when I train adults in other contexts, I often give a choice of the exam type and topic. This ensures that they will submit a work product that they are passionate about. At the end of my traditional classes at the law school, I also ask them to evaluate themselves and me based on the learning outcomes I established at the beginning of the semester. They tend to be brutally honest about whether they've taken responsibility for their own learning.

3. Adults filter what we tell them through their life experiences. In my traditional classes, I send out a survey to every student before the semester starts so that I understand their backgrounds, perspectives, and what's important to them. I often pick hypotheticals in class that directly address what I've learned about them through the surveys so it resonates much more clearly for them. With my three groups this week, I didn't have the chance to survey them but I knew where they were all from and used examples from their countries of origin, when I could. When the college students entered the Zoom room, I asked them to tell me why they picked this class. This helped me understand their perspectives. I also picked up on some of their comments during discussion and used those data points to pivot quickly when needed. It would have been easy to focus on my prepared lecture. But what does ESG mean to a lawyer in Bolivia, when that's not a priority? College students quickly grasped the context of socially responsible investing, so I spent more time there than on the Equator Principles, for example. The cultural and generational differences were particularly relevant when talking about the responsibility of tech companies from a human rights perspective. The lawyers and students from authoritarian regimes looked at social media and the power to influence the masses in one way, while the college students saw the issues differently, and focused more on the mental health issues affecting their peers. Stay tuned for a future post on this, including interesting discussion on whether Congress should repeal Section 230.

4. Adults become ready to learn only when they see how what they are learning applies to what they need to do at work and at home. With the foreign lawyers, I focused on how their clients could have to participate in due diligence or disclosure as part of a request from a company higher up in the supply chain. I focused on reputational issues with the lawyers who worked at larger companies. College students don't deal with supply chains on a regular basis so I spent more time focusing on their role as consumers and their participation in boycotts at their universities and their activism on campus and how that does or does not affect what companies do. 

5. Adults need a task-centered or problem-focused approach to learning. I had to lecture to impart the information, but with each group, they learned by doing. I had 12 hours with the Latin American lawyers so to test them on their understanding of US business entities, instead of having them complete a multiple choice quiz, I asked them to interview me as a prospective client and develop a memo to me related providing the advice, which is what they would do  in practice. They, with the other groups, also prioritized the issues discussed above from their assigned roles as CEO, NGO head, institutional investor, or consumer. When I teach my compliance course to law students, they draft policies, hold simulated board meetings, and present (fake) CLEs or trainings. My business and human rights students  have the option to draft national action plans, write case studies on companies that they love or hate, or write develop recommendations for governments for their home country. Students are much more likely to engage with the material and remember it when they feel like they are solving a real problem rather than a hypothetical.

6. Adults need extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Everyone I taught this week will get some sort of certificate of completion. But they all chose to take these courses and those who weren't part of the UM program either self paid or were reimbursed by their employers. None of them were required to attend the classes, unlike those in elementary and high school. When students choose a course of study and learn something relevant, that's even more important than the certificate or diploma. 

I hope this helps some of you getting ready for the upcoming semester. Enjoy what's left of the summer, and if you try any of these suggestions or have some of your own, please leave a comment.

 

Celebrating Independence without the Trappings: A Business Law Prof "Take"

Stefan's Independence Day post is far more erudite than mine.  Kudos and thanks to him for the substantive legal content.  This post covers more of a teaching point--one that I often think about in the background but want to being to the fore here.

I am focused in writing this on things like family reunions, local holiday festivities, grilling out, and fireworks.  It has been a rocky road to the Fourth in these and other aspects this year.  Overlapping causes can easily be identified.  As if the continuing COVID-19 nightmare were not enough . . . .

I will start with COVID-19, however.  I have heard of many who are missing family and other events this weekend because of positive COVID-19 diagnoses, test results, or exposures.  I was sad to learn, for example, that Martina Navratilova had to miss the historic Wimbledon centennial celebration, including the Parade of Champions, yesterday.  But there is more.

The air travel debacles have been well publicized.  Weather, labor shortages, and other issues contribute to the flight changes and cancellations airlines need to make on this very popular travel weekend--expected to set records.  And gas prices have stymied the trips of some by land (again, at a time during which travel was expected to be booming), although news of some price drops in advance of the weekend was certainly welcomed.  Even for those who are well and able to travel to spend holiday time with family, it has been a challenge.

The cost of your cookout this year also may be higher, should you choose to have one.  Supply chain turmoils and the effects of inflation and the war in Ukraine all are listed as contributing factors.  (The linked article does note that strawberries are a good buy, nevertheless, which is welcome news to me.)

And yes, fireworks displays also have been disrupted.  The causes include both concerns about weather (dry conditions and flammables do not mix well!) as well as the impact of labor shortages, inflation, and other factors influencing the supply of goods.  Of course, there also is a high demand for fireworks in the re-opened socio-economic environment.  All have been widely reported.  See here, here, here, and here.

These holiday weekend disappointments create personal strife.  But why should a business law prof care about all of this? 

I find that stepping back and looking at the state of business at given times can be instructive in reflecting on the ways in which business law policy, theory, and doctrine do and should operate in practice.  In an inflationary period with labor shortages, what profit-seeking business would not be looking at customers, clients, and employees as an important constituencies?  In an era of supply chain dislocations, what business managers would not be focused on strong, positive relationships with those who sell them goods and services significant to their business?  And, of course, with investment returns of direct and indirect import to the continued supply of funding to business ventures, firms need to pay heed to investor concerns.  Note how these observations allow for commentary on principles of/underlying contract law, contract drafting, securities regulation, fiduciary duty in (and other elements of) business associations law, insurance law, and more.

Looking at legal theory, policy, and doctrine in practical contexts can useful to a business law prof for teaching, scholarship, and service--depending on the nature of a person's appointment and the institution at which the prof teaches.  The current Fourth of July woes are but one example of how those connections can be made.  But I want to invite folks to make them, especially in their teaching--in current courses (if you are teaching over the summer) and in fall and spring course planning, which I know many folks are now doing.

In closing, I send sympathetic vibes to all who had plans foiled by (or who decided to have a "staycation" and avoid) some or all of the holiday weekend dislocations I highlight in this post.  I hope you found joy in your Independence Day weekend nonetheless.

More Commentary on the SEC's ESG Proposal - Sharfman and Copland

Courtesy of friend-of-the-BLPB Bernie Sharfman, I am linking to his coauthored (with James Copland) comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the climate change rule-making proposal.  The letter includes copious footnotes.  As with other comment letters that have been written on the substance of the SEC proposal, there are some interesting definitional questions on which intelligent folks disagree.  E.g., what is included under the umbrella of investor protection?  What regulation promotes "efficiency, competition, and capital formation"?  These all are among the big picture issues on which the SEC has the opportunity to speak.  I expect thoughtful responses.

Why Transactional Lawyers Need to Educate Themselves on Compliance

Prior to joining academia, I served as a compliance officer for a Fortune 500 company and I continue to consult on compliance matters today. It's an ever changing field, which is why I'm glad so many students take my Compliance, Corporate Governance, and Sustainability course in the Fall. I tell them that if they do transactional or commercial litigation work, compliance issues will inevitably arise. Here are some examples: 

• In M&A deals, someone must look at the target's  bribery, money laundering, privacy, employment law, environmental, and other risks
• Companies have to complete several disclosures. How do you navigate the rules that conflict or overlap?
• What do institutional investors really care about? What's material when it relates to ESG issues?
• What training does the board need to ensure that they meet their fiduciary duties?
• How do you deal with cyberattacks and what are the legal and ethical issues related to paying ransomware?
• How do geopolitical factors affect the compliance program?
• Who can be liable for a compliance failure?
• What happens when people cut corners in a supply chain and how can that affect the company's legal risk?
• What does a Biden DOJ/SEC mean compared to the same offices under Trump?
• Who is your client when representing an organization with compliance failures?
• and so much more

I'm thrilled to be closing out the PLI Compliance and Ethics Essentials conference in New York with my co-panelist Ben Gruenstein of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore. It's no fun being the last set of presenters, but we do have the ethics credits, so please join us either in person or online on June 28th. Our areas of focus include:

• Risk assessment, program assessment, and attorney-client privilege
• Ethical obligations for lawyers and compliance officers
• Which compliance program communications can (and should) be privileged?

In addition to discussing the assigned issues, I also plan to arm the compliance officers with more information about the recent trend(?) of Caremark cases getting past the motion to dismiss stage and compliance lessons learned from the Elon Musk/Twitter/Tesla saga. 

Here's the description of the conference, but again, even if you're not in compliance, you'll be a better transactional lawyer from learning this area of the law. 

Compliance and ethics programs are critically important to the success of any organization. Effective programs allow organizations to identify and mitigate legal risks. With an increasingly tough enforcement environment, and greater demands for transparency and accountability, an effective compliance program is no longer just “nice-to-have.” It’s essential. 

Whether you are new to the area or a seasoned compliance professional, PLI’s program will give you the tools you need to improve your organization’s compliance program.  We will review the principal elements of compliance programs and discuss best practices and recent developments for each.  Our distinguished faculty, drawn from major corporations, academia, law firms and the government, can help you improve your program, increase employee awareness and decrease legal risk.  Compliance and Ethics Essentials 2022 is highly interactive and includes case studies, practical tools and real-time benchmarking.

What You Will Learn 

• Designing and conducting effective compliance risk assessments that enhance your program
• Structuring your program for appropriate independence and authority
• The evolving role of the board
• ESG and your compliance program
• Using data analytics to improve your program
• Encouraging reporting and investigating allegations of wrongdoing
• Best practices in compliance codes, communications, training and tools
• Ethics for compliance professionals

Who Should Attend

If you are involved in any aspect of corporate compliance and ethics as in-house counsel, a compliance and ethics officer, human resources executive, outside counsel, or risk management consultant, this event should be on your annual calendar.

Special Feature: Special luncheon presentation with guest speaker

If you do come to the conference, I would love to grab a cup of coffee with you, so reach out.

Comment Letter of Securities Law Scholars on the SEC’s Authority to Pursue Climate-Related Disclosure

This post alerts everyone to a comment letter, drafted by Jill Fisch, George Georgiev, Donna Nagy, and Cindy Williams (signed by the four of them and 26 other securities law scholars, including yours truly and Ann Lipton), affirming that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent proposal related to the enhancement and standardization of climate-related disclosures for investors is within its rulemaking authority.  The letter was filed with the Commission yesterday and has been posted to SSRN.  The SSRN abstract is included below.

This Comment Letter, signed by 30 securities law scholars, responds to the SEC’s request for comment on its March 2022 proposed rules for the “Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors” (the “Proposal”). The letter focuses on a single question—whether the Proposal is within the SEC’s rulemaking authority—and answers this question in the affirmative.

The SEC’s authority for the Proposal is grounded in the text, legislative history, and judicial interpretation of the federal securities laws. The letter explains the objectives of federal regulation and demonstrates that the Proposal’s requirements are properly understood as core capital markets disclosure in the service of those objectives. The statutory framework requires the SEC to adjust and update the content of the federal securities disclosure regime in response to the evolution of the economy and markets, and, in recent decades, the SEC has done so to require disclosures on a variety of subjects from Y2K readiness, to cybersecurity, to human capital management, to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rules mandating climate-related disclosure fit with this pattern of iterative modernization. Such rules do not represent a foray into new and uncharted territory, since the SEC has a long history of requiring disclosure on environmental and climate-related topics dating back more than 50 years. Finally, the federal securities laws do not impose a materiality constraint on the SEC’s authority to promulgate climate-related disclosure requirements.

The Comment Letter therefore concludes that the SEC has the statutory authority to promulgate the Proposal, and that the climate-related disclosure rules under consideration are consistent with close to nine decades of regulatory practice at the federal level and with statutory authority dating back to 1933 that has been repeatedly reaffirmed by Congress and the courts.

There is more that has been, can, and will be said about the Commission's rulemaking proposal as a matter of process and substance.  But I will leave that for another day.  For now, we just wanted you to know about the filing of the letter and offer you an easy way to find it and review it.

What Do FIFA, Nike, and PornHub Have In Common?

It's a lovely Friday night for grading papers for my Business and Human Rights course where we focused on ESG, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. My students met with in-house counsel, academics, and a consultant to institutional investors; held mock board meetings; heard directly from people who influenced the official drafts of EU's mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence directive  and the ABA's Model Contract Clauses for Human Rights; and conducted simulations (including acting as former Congolese rebels and staffers for Mitch McConnell during a conflict minerals exercise). Although I don't expect them all to specialize in this area of the law, I'm thrilled that they took the course so seriously, especially now with the Biden Administration rewriting its National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct with public comments due at the end of this month.

The papers at the top of my stack right now:

1. Apple: The Latest Iphone's Camera Fails to Zoom Into the Company's Labor Exploitation
2. TikTok Knows More About Your Child Than You Do: TikTok’s Violations of Children’s Human Right to Privacy in their Data and Personal Information
3. Redraft of the Nestle v. Doe Supreme Court opinion
4. Pornhub or Torthub? When “Commitment to Trust and Safety” Equals Safeguarding of Human Rights: A Case Study of Pornhub Through The Lens of Felites v. MindGeek 
5. Principle Violations and Normative Breaches: the Dakota Access Pipeline - Human rights implications beyond the land and beyond the State
6. FIFA’s Human Rights Commitments and Controversies: The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game
7. The Duty to Respect: An Analysis of Business, Climate Change, and Human Rights
8. Just Wash It: How Nike uses woke-washing to cover up its workplace abuses
9. Colombia’s armed conflict, business, and human rights
10. Artificial Intelligence & Human Rights Implications: The Project Maven in the ‘Business of war.’
11. A Human Rights Approach to “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”: Corporate Accountability and Regulation
12. Don’t Talk to Strangers” and Other Antiquated Childhood Rules Because The Proverbial Stranger Now Lives in Your Phone
13. Case studies on SnapChat, Nestle Bottling Company, Lush Cosmetics, YouTube Kidfluencers, and others 

Business and human rights touches more areas than most people expect including fast fashion, megasporting events, due diligence disclosures,  climate change and just transitions, AI and surveillance, infrastructure and project finance, the use of slave labor in supply chains, and socially responsible investing. If you're interested in learning more, check out the Business and Human Rights Resources Center, which tracks 10,000 companies around the world. 

"We Know Wrongful Trading When We See It" - Some Observations Concerning the Recent Senate Hearing on the Insider Trading Prohibition Act

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing on the Insider Trading Prohibition Act (ITPA), which passed the house with bipartisan support in May of last year. Some prominent scholars, like Professor Stephen Bainbridge, have criticized the ITPA as ambiguous in its text and overbroad in its application, while others, like Professor John Coffee, have expressed concern that it does not go far enough (mostly because the bill retains the “personal benefit” requirement for tipper-tippee liability).

My own view is that there are some good, bad, and ugly aspects of the bill. Starting with what’s good about the bill:

• If made law, the ITPA would end what Professor Jeanne L. Schroeder calls the “jurisprudential scandal that insider trading is largely a common law federal offense” by codifying its elements.

• The ITPA would bring trading on stolen information that is not acquired by deception (e.g., information acquired by breaking into a file cabinet or hacking a computer) within its scope. Such conduct would not incur Section 10b insider trading liability under the current enforcement regime.

• The ITPA at least purports (more on this below) to only proscribe “wrongful” trading, or trading on information that is “obtained wrongfully.” Since violations of our insider trading laws incur criminal liability and stiff penalties, I have argued for some time that liability should be limited to conduct that is morally wrongful.

• The ITPA preserves the “personal benefit” test as a limiting principal on what otherwise would be an ambiguous and potentially overbroad test for when tipping would breach a fiduciary or similar duty of trust and confidence. Traders need (and justice demands) bright lines that will allow them to determine ex ante whether their trading is legal or will incur 20 years of prison time (but more on this below).

Now, turning to what is bad about the bill, I share some concerns raised by Professor Todd Henderson in his testimony before the Senate Committee:

• Though the ITPA codifies the personal benefit test as a limit on liability, it includes “indirect personal benefit[s]” within its scope. As Henderson points out, “[i]t is possible to describe virtually any human interaction as providing an ‘indirect benefit’ to the participants. Instead, the law should reflect the common sense notion that the source of information either received something tangible and valuable in return or what amounts to a monetary gift to a relative or friend.” The personal benefit test only fulfills its intended function as a limiting principle if it imposes real limits on liability. The test should therefore only be satisfied by objective evidence of self-dealing. If indirect psychological or other benefits that can be found in any voluntary human action can satisfy the test, then it cannot function as a limit on liability.

• At least some versions of the ITPA include a catchall provision to the definition of wrongfully obtained or used information that would include “a breach of a confidentiality agreement, [or] a breach of contract.” Not only does this challenge the time-honored concept of efficient breach in the law of contracts, but as Professor Andrew Verstein has argued, this provision can open the door to the weaponization of insider trading law through the practice of “strategic tipping.” Professor Henderson raised this concern before the Senate committee, noting that so broad an understanding of wrongful trading is “ripe for abuse, with companies potentially able to prevent individual investors from trading merely by providing them with information whether they want it or not.” The recent examples of Mark Cuban and David Einhorn come to mind.

• The ITPA would impose criminal liability for “reckless” conduct. As Henderson explained to the Committee, under the ITPA, “anyone who ‘was aware, consciously avoided being aware, or recklessly disregarded’ that the information was wrongfully obtained or communicated can have a case brought against them. The ITPA is silent on the meaning of ‘recklessly disregarded,’ which would appear to rope in innocent traders along with actual wrongdoers.” Moreover, permitting mere recklessness to satisfy the mens rea element of insider trading liability will no doubt have a chilling effect on good-faith transactions based on market rumors that would otherwise be value enhancing for traders, their clients, and the markets. The loss of such trades will diminish market liquidity and reduce price accuracy.

• Finally, Henderson raised the concern that the ITPA lacks an “exclusivity clause stating that it will be the sole basis for bringing federal insider trading claims.” Henderson explained that “allowing prosecutors to cherry pick their preferred law is no way to provide clear rules for the market.” Professor Karen Woody has written about how prosecutors may be starting to bring insider trading cases under 18 U.S.C. § 1348 to avoid the court-imposed personal benefit test under Exchange Act §10b. Without an exclusivity clause, prosecutors will be free to make the same end run around the personal benefit test imposed by the ITPA.

Finally, the ITPA is straight-up ugly because, while it promises that it will limit insider trading liability (which can be punished by up to 20 years imprisonment) to only “wrongful” conduct, the bill defines the term “wrongful” in a way that suggests the drafters have no intention of delivering on that promise. For example, as noted above, some versions of the bill define any breach of contract as “wrongful,” but this is in clear tension with common sense, common law, and the doctrine of efficient breach.

In addition, though there is ambiguity in the text, current versions of the ITPA appear to embrace SEC Rule 10b5-1’s “awareness” test for when trading on material nonpublic information incurs insider trading liability. Under the awareness test, a corporate insider incurs insider trading liability if she is aware of material nonpublic information while trading for totally unrelated reasons. In other words, liability may be imposed even if the material nonpublic information played no motivational role in the decision to trade. But if the material nonpublic information played no motivational role, then the trading cannot be judged “wrongful” under any common-sense understanding of that term.

For these (and other reasons there is no space to address here), the ITPA leaves too much room for play in its definition of what constitutes “wrongful” trading and tipping to cohere with our common-sense understanding of that term. Former SEC Commission Robert J. Jackson assured the Committee that “we know wrongful trading when we see it.” Presumably Professor Jackson’s implication was that the SEC and DOJ can be trusted to exercise sound discretion in interpreting the play in the statutory language. In response, I offer the following question for Professor Jackson or any reader of the ITPA to consider: Would issuer-licensed insider trading violate the statute? I have defined “issuer licensed insider trading” as occurring where:

(1) the insider submits a written plan to the firm that details the proposed trade(s);

(2) the firm authorizes that plan;

(3) the firm has previously disclosed to the investing public that it will permit its employees to trade on the firm’s material nonpublic information when it is in the interest of the firm to grant such permission; and

(4) the firm discloses ex post all trading profits resulting from the execution of these plans.

I have argued that trading under these conditions is neither morally wrongful nor harmful to markets. If it violates ITPA, what provisions? I hope some readers will share their thoughts on this in the comments below!