Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Seattle University Law Review
Abstract
Benefit corporations have enjoyed legislative and, to a lesser extent, popular success over the past few years. This article anticipates what recently (at the eve of its publication) became a reality: the advent of a publicly held U.S. benefit corporation — a corporation with public equity holders that is organized under a specialized U.S. state statute requiring corporations to serve both shareholder wealth aims and social or environmental objectives. Specifically, the article undertakes to identify and comment on the structure and function of U.S. benefit corporations and the unique litigation risks to which a publicly held U.S. benefit corporation may be subject. In doing so, the article links the importance of a publicly held benefit corporation's public benefit purpose to litigation risk management from several perspectives. In sum, the distinctive features of the benefit corporation form, taken together with key attendant litigation risks for publicly held U.S. benefit corporations (in each case, as identified in this article), confirm and underscore the key role that corporate purpose plays in benefit corporation law.
First Page
611
Last Page
682
Publication Date
Winter 2017
Recommended Citation
Heminway, Joan MacLeod, "Corporate Purpose and Litigation Risk in Publicly Held U.S. Benefit Corporations" (2017). Scholarly Works. 803.
https://ir.law.utk.edu/utklaw_facpubs/803