| Initial Public Offerings & the Securities Act of 1933> Registration of Securities> Registration Statement Filing |
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| Pros and Cons for a Company Going PublicMore... |
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| Corporate Criminal Liability |
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| Corporations were not initially held criminally responsible for corporate activities. A corporation was considered to be a legally fictitious entity, incapable of forming the mens rea necessary to commit a criminal act. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected this notion in 1909 in New York Central & Hudson River Railroad v. U.S. A railroad company employee paid rebates to shippers in violation of federal law. The court upheld the corporation's criminal conviction, finding no reason that corporations could not be held "responsible for and charged with the knowledge and purposes of their agents, acting within the authority conferred upon them." The Supreme Court concluded that criminal liability could be imputed to the corporation based on the benefit it received as a result of the criminal acts of its agents. The case and its progeny have essentially imported the doctrine of respondeat superior from tort law into the corporate criminal realm. A corporation may be convicted for its agent's unlawful acts when the agent acted within the scope of his or her actual or apparent authority. Another theory of corporate criminal liability is the "collective knowledge doctrine." As knowledge of criminal activity is often the scienter element of a particular crime, the requisite knowledge can be imputed to the corporation based on the collective knowledge of the directors and officers. More... |
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| Sarbanes-Oxley |
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| The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Act), generally applicable to publicly traded companies with registered securities and are subject to reporting requirements under federal law, specifically addresses the issue of whistleblower protection in a corporate context. The Act's employee whistleblower provision was modeled after other federal statutes containing whistleblower protections (for example, protections that apply to workers in the nuclear energy industry.
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| SIPC Protection for Investors |
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| Investors who engage in securities transactions through a brokerage firm that is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (or SIPC) receive protection for cash and securities held by the brokerage firm for the accounts of the investors. The SIPC covers up to $500,000 in losses of such cash and securities per investor with a $100,000 limit on the amount of cash in an account that is covered.More... |
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| Duty of Care |
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| A corporate director has the duty to act in good faith in pursuit of the company's best interests and to use the care that an ordinary prudent person in a like position would use under similar circumstances. The Model Business Corporation Act implies that corporate officers have an even higher duty of care because they are intimately familiar with and knowledgeable about the corporation's activities and have better access to corporate information than directors have. Most jurisdictions recognize that high-ranking corporate officers have a fiduciary relationship with the corporation.
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