Bite-Sized Business Law
Looking for the latest in legal business news?
Get a breakdown of the top stories in business law from industry leaders on the front lines with Bite-Sized Business Law. Host Amy Martella takes a closer look at the latest corporate happenings through interviews with the attorneys, legal experts, public figures, and scholars behind the news to distill business law’s biggest stories into bite-sized portions.
This is your chance to go further into the world of business law and stay up to date with legal cases and industry trends.
Corporations impact us all, leading changes that extend far beyond business to shape the economy, public policy, technology, and beyond. Looking at the big picture, Amy discusses not only the underlying issues in business ethics and legal cases leading the biggest stories but also sparks thought-provoking discussions on where the law should be headed.
Amy is the Executive Director of the Corporate Law Center at Fordham University School of Law. Her background ranges from big law to government to tech startups, allowing her to offer an insider’s perspective of the issues that shape corporate actions, large and small. Covering crypto regulation to securities fraud, AI’s impact to Elon Musk’s pay package, Bite-Sized Business Law covers it all with guests of varying viewpoints to provide the nuanced analysis needed to tackle complex problems.
Whether you're looking for the latest in legal insight on intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, business ethics or legal cases in the business law world, you’ll find it here. Enjoying a thoughtful perspective on the news stories of the moment, Bite-Sized Business Law examines big issues and delivers them in small doses.
Bite-Sized Business Law is a project by the Corporate Law Center at Fordham Law. The Center serves as a hub for scholars, professionals, policymakers, and students to engage in the study, discussion, and debate of current issues in corporate law. The Center focuses on aspects of corporate law, corporate compliance, antitrust law, and securities regulation. Through initiatives like the Mergers and Acquisitions seminar and the Securities Litigation and Arbitration Clinic, students actively engage in real-world research and cases, bridging the gap between classroom learning and practical application in the legal field.
Bite-Sized Business Law
When Companies Act Like Countries: Inside Corporate Power and the Politics of Change
What happens when corporations start to look and act more like states, including jumping into political debates and providing services that we traditionally expect from government? Matteo Gatti, professor of business law at Rutgers Law School, unpacks his new book, Corporate Power and the Politics of Change, the culmination of years studying how business decisions interact with democratic institutions and social movements. Matteo discusses the history of the corporation from early state-serving charters and infrastructure projects to today’s corporate responsibility debates and culture wars. Matteo introduces his concept of “corporate governing” and explains how corporate speech and corporate action now interact with politics and social movements. The conversation also delves into the incentives and risks for companies that enter into socio-political advocacy, the democratic and institutional costs of relying on corporations to fill public gaps, and why standard corporate governance tools are a poor fit for public governance. Join the conversation to find out what lies ahead for the corporate landscape and what corporate power looks like when companies start acting like countries. Tune in now!
Key Points From This Episode:
- How Professor Gatti became interested in the intersection of corporate power and politics.
- The evolution of corporations and the role they played in providing public functions.
- Hear how a shift in expectations caused companies to engage with socio-economic issues.
- Learn what “corporate governing” is and the interplay between corporations and government.
- Key drivers behind the rise in corporate advocacy and the cost of remaining silent.
- What changes in politics have created a backlash against corporate responsibility.
- Explore whether corporate governance is good for democracy and public governance.
- Unpack the undemocratic nature of corporate decision-making and its impact on politics.
- Why government solutions are more general, stable, and durable than corporate initiatives.
- His critique of leveraging tools from corporate governance for solving socio-economic issues.
- Lessons about the importance of authenticity, stakeholder expectations, and political risk.
- Professor Gatti’s future outlook and his proposals for revitalizing public governance.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Professor Matteo Gatti on LinkedIn
Corporate Power and the Politics of Change