Article Instance

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{
    "pk": 59640,
    "title": "Investor Coalitions Through an Antitrust Lens",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "<p>This Article offers a novel—antitrust—perspective on a growing phenomenon in capital markets: institutional investor coalitions. In recent years, a large group of powerful institutional investors, who collectively own significant equity stakes in most public companies, have created alliances on various corporate governance issues. Traditionally, corporate law has encouraged investor cooperation on these issues, regarding it as the solution to the well-known collective-action problem facing shareholders in public companies. As this Article shows, however, the prevailing positive view underscores a crucial point: members of the coalition are not only co-owners of companies but also competitors in capital markets. In the primary markets, institutional investors are competing buyers of shares, vying for share allocation. In the secondary market, they compete as asset managers, using their portfolio performances to attract retail investors and sponsors. The concern raised in this Article is that cooperation among institutional investors—even on seemingly benign governance matters—could facilitate tacit collusion and grant coalition members an unfair advantage in capital markets.</p>\n<p>Focusing on one powerful investor coalition that emerged in recent years with the goal of limiting the use of dual-class stock in initial public offerings (IPOs), this Article demonstrates that when competing buyers of shares coordinate their response to a governance term at the IPO juncture, they effectively form a buyers’ cartel. Due to the coalition members’ collective dominance over the demand for public offerings, their orchestrated efforts lead to two potential economic distortions. First, abnormal underpricing of dual-class stock, which allows members to buy shares in the primary market below their fair market value. This price distortion explains the significant amounts of money often being “left on the table” by dual-class issuers. Second, the coalition can pressure issuers into adopting suboptimal governance arrangements, such as mandatory time-based sunset provisions, which may be value-decreasing. Both distortions can lead to the same sort of economic harm that antitrust law is designed to prevent.</p>\n<p>The potential anticompetitive effects of investor coalitions require an immediate policy response. This Article thus proposes a multi-faceted regulatory reform aimed at curbing institutional investors’ collective actions that may limit competition. The suggestions include restricting collective actions in the primary market and, under certain circumstances, banning communication between institutional investors during IPOs. Furthermore, the Article emphasizes the need for targeted antitrust scrutiny of institutional investor consortia—advocacy groups that coordinate governance initiatives on behalf of their members—given their demonstrated capacity to facilitate communication and sustain collusive practices. The proposed policy measures seek to strike a delicate balance between the goal of corporate law to encourage cooperation among shareholders and the goal of antitrust law to restrain collaboration among competitors.</p>",
    "language": null,
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [],
    "section": "Article",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8hn6j3s2",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Danielle",
            "middle_name": "A.",
            "last_name": "Chaim",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2025-12-03T10:04:00+02:00",
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    "galleys": [
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            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/ucilr/article/59640/galley/45612/download/"
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    ]
}