This year’s Distinguished Lecturer is Professor Edward Rock of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a nationally recognized corporate law expert. A summary of his background and a sampling of his scholarship are provided in the announcement here. The origin of the  Annual F. G. Pileggi Distinguished Lecture in Law,  sponsored by The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the lead law review of Widener University School of Law, is described here. This annual lecture series was named after my father, F. G. Pileggi, and not the author of this blog post. (I have an extra middle initial.) Last year’s Lecture, and links to lecturers from prior years, are highlighted on this blog here.

The topic and the abstract of this year’s presentation, held today, October 9, 2009, in Wilmington, Delaware, is as follows:

TOPIC:
When the Government is the Controlling Shareholder: Implications for Delaware
 

ABSTRACT:
As a result of the bailouts that began in the fall of 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and Troubled Assets Relief Program, and its various subprograms, the United States Government now owns a large portfolio of equity positions in Delaware corporations, including controlling positions in AIG, Citigroup, GM, and GMAC. Corporate law provides a complex and comprehensive set of standards of conduct governing the behavior of controlling shareholders. When the Treasury is the controlling shareholder, doctrines of “sovereign immunity” replace many of these existing “private law” structures of accountability with federal “public law” norms. In this lecture, I examine Delaware’s place in this new legal landscape.

UPDATE: The Wilmington News Journal published an article about the Annual Lecture here. Also, The Philadelphia Inquirer’‘s Joe DiStefano wrote a piece about the good professor’s Lecture here.