David Webber

Professor of Law School of Law at Boston University

Schools

  • Boston University

Links

Biography

Boston University

David H. Webber’s research focuses on shareholder activism and corporate governance, with a particular emphasis on shareholder rights and shareholder litigation. Webber’s work has been cited numerous times by other academics and has been anthologized in Securities Law Review and Corporate Practice Commentator. He has presented his research at several international academic conferences, including the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies and the American Law and Economics Association conference, and published in leading scholarly journals including the Northwestern University Law Review, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, and the Boston University Law Review. Webber’s work has also been cited in leading federal cases arising out of the financial crisis, including Richman v. Goldman Sachs_and the _In re Countrywide Securities Litigation, and by the Delaware Chancery Court in In re Del Monte Foods, a leading case on mergers and acquisitions.

Professor Webber has been interviewed on a range of corporate governance and securities law issues by Nightly Business Report, NPR’s Marketplace, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, and others. He has testified about pension governance issues in California and New Hampshire, and has spoken at numerous practitioner-oriented conferences. He is a founding member of the Boston University Center for Finance, Law & Policy.

Professor Webber joined BU Law from New York University Law School and the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was a Wagner Fellow at the Pollack Center for Law and Business. Prior to his fellowship, he litigated corporate and securities cases in New York and clerked for Judge Harold A. Ackerman of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Professor Webber holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from Columbia University and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law, where he was a Lederman/Milbank Fellow in Law & Business and an editor for the_NYU Law Review_. He teaches civil procedure, securities regulation, and a seminar on shareholder activism.

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Cases

Shareholder alert: SEC commissioner floats class-action-killing proposal

July 18, 2017

Reuters quoting David Webber, School of Law “This could be the start of something huge: Securities and Exchange Commissioner Michael Piwowar said in a speech Monday to the Heritage Foundation that the SEC is open to the idea of allowing companies contemplating initial public offerings to include mandatory shareholder arbitration provisions in corporate charters…” Expert […]

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Shareholders are costing their companies — and calling it democracy

May 3, 2017

Washington Post David Webber, School of Law  “It’s becoming an all-too-frequent occurrence at publicly traded companies: An investor holding just a few shares of stock puts forward a shareholder proposal that’s only tangentially related to the company’s operations or strategy…” Expert quote: Critics of these proposals, such as Boston University law professor David H. Webber, […]

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Shareholder Advocacy Tool Shut Down in Republican Plan

April 25, 2017

Bloomberg David Webber, School of Law “A shareholder tool used to advocate for changes in corporate behavior would be effectively shut down under the latest Republican plan to roll back the Dodd-Frank Act…” Expert quote: “I think it could backfire.” View full article. 

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Big corporations are trying to silence their own shareholders

April 18, 2017

Washington Post by David H. Webber, School of Law “Corporate lobbyists at the Business Roundtable — led by JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon — are heralding an effort to sharply limit the ability of investors to have a say in their companies through shareholder proposals…” View full article. 

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Can America’s Companies Survive America’s Most Aggressive Investors?

November 22, 2016

The Atlantic David Webber, School of Law Ron Ozer was thrilled to get a job with DuPont, the two-centuries-old chemical company, when he finished his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1990… Expert quote: “Hedge funds promised that they could beat the market, and help these [pension and other large institutional] funds catch up on big liabilities […]

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Pension Funds Considering Fossil Fuel Divestment, Socially Responsible Investments Get Boost From Labor Department

October 27, 2015

International Business Times David Webber, School of Law The U.S. Department of Labor has withdrawn an arcane George W. Bush-era measure that critics say discouraged pension trustees from making socially responsible investment decisions — like divesting from energy companies that contribute to climate change… Expert quote: “The rationale can’t be, ‘We hate coal, we’re dumping it, […]

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David H. Webber: Protecting public pension investments

November 20, 2014

Washington Post By David Webber, School of Law Public pension funds should invest the retirement savings of government workers to secure their financial future, not undermine it… View full article by expert David Webber

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California teacher pension fund to sell gun investments

January 10, 2013

Marketplace David Webber, School of Law The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS, the second largest public pension fund in the U.S., announced it plans to get rid of the stock it owns in companies that make firearms… View article

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Video: Law Professor on Roles & Ethics of Company Officials

May 2, 2012

PBS “Nightly Business Report” David Webber, School of Law David Webber, Associate Professor of Law at Boston University, talks with us tonight about the roles company officials have and how ethics are now in question… View article and video

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