When New York giant law firms Skadden and Wachtell Lipton go up against each other, it's always fun. Sort of like Josey Wales against Marshall Dillon.
Liz Dunshee reported a while back that they are facing off over the revived corporate purpose debate:
A recent Wachtell Lipton memo defines “purpose” as:
The purpose of a corporation is to conduct a lawful, ethical, profitable and sustainable business in order to create value over the long-term, which requires consideration of the stakeholders that are critical to its success (shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, creditors and communities), as determined by the corporation and the board of directors using its business judgment and with regular engagement with shareholders, who are essential partners in supporting the corporation’s pursuit of this mission.
In response to Wachtell’s positions, Skadden published this memo – which argues that shareholder primacy is still the name of the game. And practically speaking, companies’ ability to accommodate non-shareholder stakeholders is likely to turn on shareholder preferences.
Dunshee now comments that "this is a revival of the old 1980s Skadden v. Wachtel debates when Joe Flom (now deceased) and Marty Lipton (clearly alive) made themselves famous in the hot times of corporate raiding by touring with show about their rival forms of takeovers and defenses":
Here’s an old University of Michigan newsletter that recounts a panel discussion including these two giants. And here’s a recent interview of Marty Lipton in “Business Law Today,” in which he comments that those touring days might have been the point when he knew he was a leader in the field:
JP: Was getting attacked by the folks from the Chicago School the time that you felt like, “OK—I’ve made it on the national stage”? When did you realize that you’re a leader in this field?
ML: I don’t know whether that’s possible to answer. I would say mid-’80s with the poison pill more than anything else. I certainly wasn’t an intellectual leader. From 1976, when Steve Brill wrote an article (“Two Tough Lawyers in the Tender-Offer Game,” NY Mag., 1976) about Flom and myself being the two lawyers on opposite sides in tender offers, I was a known quantity, and people were calling who didn’t know me but just from reputation were seeking representation in takeover situations. So it’s hard to say.