CLARS Law & Business Seminar Series: Startup Failure

Venture-backed startups famously “exit” by going public or selling to another company through an acquisition deal. A different path, however, is far more common – failure.

Despite the large amounts invested in venture-backed startups, and their high average rate of failure, these companies rarely use the formal Chapter 11 bankruptcy process that is embraced by distressed public companies seeking to preserving their going-concern value.

In this discussion, Professor Pollman will provide an account of startup failure, including:

• why bankruptcy law does not fit the needs of most distressed venture-backed startups
• what we can learn from the rare exceptions and
• how alternative mechanisms serve an important role in the venture capital ecosystem.

Elizabeth Pollman is a Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She teaches and writes on a variety of topics in business law, with a particular focus on corporate governance, purpose, and personhood, as well as startups, entrepreneurship, and law and technology. She serves on the Corporate Laws Committee of the American Bar Association and has served on the National Business Law Scholars Conference Board and the AALS Business Associations Executive Committee. She was previously on the faculty of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Sydney Law School and UC Berkeley School of Law, and as a lecturer at Stanford Law School. She practiced law at Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles and served as a clerk for Judge Raymond C. Fisher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She earned both her BA and JD, with distinction, from Stanford University.

Commentator

Peter Dunne, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills

Peter specialises in mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital. He has advised on multibillion-dollar transactions, including acquisitions, buy-outs, disposals and joint ventures and recapitalisations, involving some of Australia’s largest public and private organisations.

Peter has also advised the Australian Federal Government in relation to ESOPs and is responsible for drafting the standard ESOP documents provided by the Australian Taxation Office on their website.

Peter has advised on expansion capital investments for a number of founders and management teams including Atlassian, Campaign Monitor, Deputy, Gilmour Space, Nura Holdings, Expert360, Social Garden, Cognitive Platforms, Buckitdream, Docta, Culture Amp, Instaclustr, Predict HQ, Identitii, Tyro Payments, OzForex, 99designs, Cloud9, PageUp People, Iron Mountain, Bluestone, BigCommerce, TimeBase, Shopsmart, Simple Technology, Elanation, Unlock’d, SafetyCulture, ArgiSystems, We Are Social, Brands on Show and Zoox.

Peter has held positions on the SheStarts Advisory Board and as a director of the 40K Foundation.

Moderator

Professor Jennifer Hill, Bob Baxt AO Chair, Monash Law & Director of CLARS

Professor Jennifer Hill is the inaugural Bob Baxt AO Professor of Corporate and Commercial Law at Monash University Faculty of Law and is the Director of the Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies (CLARS). Jennifer is an internationally recognised legal scholar in the field of comparative corporate law and governance.

Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Sydney (BA LLB (Hons) and the University of Oxford (BCL). She is a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and has held visiting teaching and research positions at leading international institutions, including the University of Cambridge; Cornell University; Duke University; NYU Law School; University of Virginia, University of Texas, and Vanderbilt University Law School.

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