法律翻译 | 《哈佛法律评论》第133卷第4期目录+摘要

In cities across the country, artists, protesters, and businesses are using light projections to turn any building’s facade into a billboard without the owner’s consent. Examples are legion: “Believe Women” on a New York City Best Buy; a scantily clad male model on the side of an apartment building; a nativity scene on the Los Angeles chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Two courts have considered claims by owners seeking to stop these projections under theories of trespass and nuisance. In each case, the court held that because light is intangible and the projections resulted in no economic harm to the property, the common law affords no relief. This Article argues that property law can and should authorize projection claims by private owners. It traces the history of property tort claims involving light, explaining how the law developed to emphasize economic and physical harm and identifying the forgotten strands of doctrine that nonetheless support liability for targeted projections. Projections are forms of appropriation: not only do they disrupt the owner’s use and control, but they also cause dignity and privacy harms by exploiting the owner’s realty toward unwanted ends. Protections for these noneconomic interests have long been parasitic on trespass and nuisance, but the light projections expose a gap between the two forms of action. This Article argues that, despite hurdles in both nuisance and First Amendment law, tort law can mend this gap by more flexibly defining harm to encompass activity without economic or physical consequences that would nonetheless be perceived as harmful by ordinary citizens, particularly if intentional and limited in independent utility. More generally, the projection cases teach broader lessons about the development of the property torts, the concept of appropriative harm, the relationship between privacy and property, and the nature of property itself.

在全国各大城市，艺术家、示威者和生意人在未经业主同意的情况下随意使用灯光投影将建筑的外表面变成了巨型的广告牌。这样的例子不胜枚举：纽约市百思买商店外“相信女人”的标语；公寓楼一侧衣着暴露的男人图像；美国公民自由联盟洛杉矶分会外耶稣诞生的图景。两家法院审理了业主根据侵入和妨害理论要求停止投影的主张。在两起诉讼中法院均认为，光线是无形的，而且投影不会对房产造成经济损害，因此普通法不对此提供救济。本文认为财产法可以并且应当允许私人业主提出与投影有关的主张。本文追溯了历史上与光线有关的财产侵权主张，解释了法律是如何发展以强调经济和有形伤害的，找出了那些被遗忘的法律原则，这些原则赞成投影的人应当承担侵权责任。投影是侵占的一种形式：对于不动产的这种利用违背了业主的意愿，这不仅妨碍了业主的使用和控制，而且损害了业主的尊严和隐私。对于这类非经济利益的保护长期依赖于侵入和妨害理论，然而灯光投影暴露了这两种理论存在的差距。本文认为，虽然这两种滋扰的形式和宪法第一修正案中存在着难以跨越的门槛，不过侵权法可以弥补这一缺陷。如果没有造成经济或物理后果的行为在一般人看来是有害的，尤其当这些行为是刻意为之并特别针对某一栋建筑时，那么侵权法可以更加灵活地将这些行为涵盖在损害的范围内。从更普遍的意义上说，有关投影的案例广泛地反映了财产侵权的发展、侵占损害的概念、隐私与房产的关系、以及房产自身性质。

A go-shop process turns the traditional M&A deal process on its head: rather than a pre-signing market canvass followed by a post-signing “no shop” period, a go-shop deal involves a limited pre-signing market check, followed by a post-signing “go shop” process to find a higher bidder. A decade ago one of us published the first systematic empirical study of go-shop deals. Contrary to the conventional wisdom at the time, the study found that go-shops could yield a meaningful market check, with a higher bidder appearing 13% of the time during the go-shop period. In this Article, we compile a new sample of M&A deals announced between 2010 and 2019. We find that go-shops, in general, are no longer an effective tool for post-signing price discovery. We then document several reasons for this change: the proliferation of first-bidder match rights, the shortening of go-shop windows, CEO conflicts of interest, investment banker effects, and collateral terms that have the effect of tightening the go-shop window. We conclude that the story of the go-shop technology over the past ten years is one of innovation corrupted: transactional planners innovate; the Delaware courts signal qualified acceptance; and then a broader set of practitioners push the technology beyond its breaking point. In view of these developments in transactional practice, we provide recommendations for the Delaware courts and corporate boards of directors.

招揽行为颠覆了传统上并购交易的过程：相比于签署协议前在市场中进行游说，然后签署协议后受到禁止招揽条款的约束，招揽行为是在签署协议前进行简易的市场调研，然后在签署协议后根据招揽权条款寻找出价更高的出价人。十年前，我们之中的一个人对第一次针对行使招揽权达成的交易进行了系统性的实证研究。与当时流行的传统观点相反，该研究发现，行使招揽权可以导向有意义的市场调研，行使招揽权的过程中有13%的可能会出现出价更高的出价人。在本文中，我们收集了2010年至2019年间新达成的并购交易案例。我们发现，招揽行为普遍而言不再是签约之后有效的询价工具。我们随后给出了发生这一变化的几个原因：第一出价人优先权的增加、招揽权行使期限的缩短、首席执行官的利益冲突、投资银行的影响、以及缩短招揽权行使期限的附带条款。我们得出的结论是，招揽行为在过去十年里遭到扭曲：交易发起人的变动；特拉华州法院释放出限制承兑的信号；更广泛的从业人员使得招揽行为难以维系。基于交易实践中的这些发展，我们最后向特拉华州法院及公司董事会提出了一些建议。

原文链接：

https://harvardlawreview.org/issues/volume-133-issue-4/