The key issue for American business today is whether the institution of the corporate board of directors, as we know it today, can survive as the governing organ of the public corporation.

Martin Lipton comments on some of the most significant issues facing boards of directors in 2008.

North Korea is testing how much the Obama administration will give to maintain the fiction of diplomatic progress.

The U.S. structure for collective investment, in which individual corporations hire outside investment advisers, is unusual among developed economies. Most other industrialized nations use structures based on a direct contractual relationship between the fund manager and the investor. In such structures, there is no intervening corporation, but there are...

The Committee believes there would be considerable potential benefit for the economy if shareholders were able more easily to elect directors who are committed to better corporate performance, but not if the result would merely be to facilitate the use of the election process by small groups of shareholders more interested in their personal causes than in the performance of the firm.

Stephen K. West proposed changing mutual fund regulation by using a uniform fee investment company.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has recently proposed rules to assist shareholders in placing nominees for directors on the ballot at shareholders meetings. In a recent release, the SEC stated that the proposed rules "may serve to align the interests of the board and security holders, thereby giving investors greater...

Although many consider the pattern of corporate mergers and buyoutsto bea novelty, the activity resembles a wave of corporate consolidation at the turn of the century.