Temple Law Japan is honored to present Jonathan Lipson as a special guest speaker for a 2-Credit CLE seminar on the topic Promising Justice: Human Rights in Supply Chain Contracts.

Date:  Monday, March 18, 2019

Time:

18:30 doors open
19:00 seminar starts
21:00 seminar ends

Venue:

Temple University, Japan Campus, Mita Hall 4F (Access)

Cost:

¥5,000 for attendees requiring CLE credit.
(Free to attendees not requiring credit)

Registration:  This event has passed

Note:

• The seminar is held in English.
• Persons who are interested in the topic but who do not require CLE credits are most welcome to attend.

Supply chain agreements appear increasingly to include terms intended to advance social, economic and/or environmental goals. For example, General Motors' standard-form supply-chain agreement New Tab requires its suppliers to agree not to use "child, slave, prisoner or any other form of forced or involuntary labor." Hewlett Packard requires its suppliers to agree to abide New Tab by elaborate "supplier sustainability requirements" meant to protect the environment.

These are extraordinary uses of contract, which raise many questions of likely concern to practitioners:

• Why would buyers—or sellers—agree to these terms?
• Who, exactly, are the beneficiaries; who has standing to enforce these terms?
• How is performance under them to be monitored?
• How, as a practical matter, will these terms be enforced? Typical contract remedies—damages or specific performance—present significant challenges here.
• What sorts of ethical and professional issues do terms of this sort raise for counsel to buyers or sellers?

The Working Group to Draft Human Rights Protections in International Supply Contracts of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association recently promulgated model contract terms meant to answer some of these questions. As a member of the Working Group, Professor Jonathan Lipson of Temple Law School has been intimately involved in efforts to understand these terms and anticipate and address questions about them. He will discuss these issues at this 2-credit CLE seminar which provides 1-substantive and 1-ethics CLE credits for U.S. licensed attorneys requiring credits.

About the Speaker

Jonathan Lipson

Harold E. Kohn Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law

Jonathan Lipson holds the Harold E. Kohn Chair and is a Professor of Law at Temple University—Beasley School of Law. He teaches Contracts, Bankruptcy, Corporations, Commercial Law, Lawyering for Entrepreneurship, International Business Transactions, and a variety of other business law courses. In addition to Temple, he has taught at the law schools of the University of Wisconsin (where he held the Foley & Lardner Chair), the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Baltimore.

His research focuses on the role of social norms in business law, with a special emphasis on problems of governance and information asymmetry in business failure: Who decides how to fix broken companies, and who must reveal what information in order to do so? He has written dozens of articles and book chapters considering these questions from a variety of perspectives, focusing in particular on the role of contracting practices, external investigation, and directorial duties.

He has published in many of the nation's top law reviews, including those of the UCLA New Tab, Boston University New Tab, Notre Dame New Tab, and Southern California New Tab law schools. His work has been cited by, among others, the United States Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals, as well as leading business courts such as the Delaware Supreme Court, the Delaware Chancery Court and the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. He is also a coauthor (with Macaulay et al.) of Contracts Law in Action New Tab, the nation's leading casebook that takes a "law in action" approach to contract law.

An occasional empiricist, Professor Lipson has published two articles on the use of "examiners" in chapter 11 bankruptcies New Tab, the second of which New Tab won the Editors' Prize as the best paper published in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal in 2016. His study of employment New Tab at the Trump Casinos in connection with their bankruptcies received widespread attention, and was noted in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Professor Lipson is a member of the American Law Institute, a Regent of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers, and is active with the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association where, from 2011 to 2017, he was Section Content Officer. He is now a member of the Section Council and an invited member of the Corporate Laws Committee. He has also served as an expert in complex corporate reorganizations, including that of Enron Corp. His shorter works have appeared on, among others, The Huffington Post, Concurring Opinions, and Credit Slips. He also writes op-eds for the National Law Journal and USAToday New Tab. He is the founding editor of The Temple 10-Q, an electronic business law newsletter published by the Beasley School of Law.

Prior to teaching, Professor Lipson was a lawyer. From 1995-1999, he practiced corporate and commercial law in Boston, with the firm of Hill & Barlow. From 1992 to 1995, he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis. From 1990-1992, he practiced with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. While in practice, he was involved in several large and complex Chapter 11 bankruptcies, including those of Healthco, Thinking Machines Corporation, and CIS Corporation.

He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, B.A., with honors (1986) & J.D. (1990), where he was a note editor of the Wisconsin Law Review.

About CLE Credit

Temple Law School is an accredited provider of continuing legal education (CLE) in Pennsylvania. Various states, including California and New York, recognize Pennsylvania CLE credits. However, attorneys are responsible for checking with the CLE board in their jurisdiction before attending the CLE seminar whether Pennsylvania CLE credits will count towards their CLE requirements and what their jurisdiction requires them to do to claim out-of-state CLE credits. Please inform us before the seminar if your CLE board requires anything other than a copy of the Pennsylvania CLE credit form and a certificate of attendance.