Prof. Kobi Kastiel

Kobi Kastiel is a Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School, a non-resident Affiliate Fellow of the Stigler Center at University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, and a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). Kastiel earned his S.J.D. and LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where he served as a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics in all years of study, as a Research Director at the Program on Corporate Governance, and was awarded the John M. Olin Prize in Law & Economics and the Victor Brudney Prize in Corporate Governance. Kastiel also holds an LL.B. degree (magna cum laude) and B.A. degree in economics from Tel Aviv University. Prior to joining the academia, he practiced for four years in a top New York law firm, and clerked on the Israeli Supreme Court.

Kastiel teaches and researches in the fields of corporate law and corporate governance, with a particular focus on public companies with controlling shareholders, shareholder activism and stakeholder governance. He has published over 20 articles in leading U.S. law journals (including in Yale Law Journal, Chicago Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review and Southern California Law Review), and he is the recipient of a number of research awards and scholarships, including, most recently, the Tzeltner Prize for an outstanding young legal scholar in Israel, and the TAU Provost Award for Academic Excellence in Teaching. One of his recent articles has also been voted by business law professors as among the top 10 corporate and securities law articles of the year (2021). Professor Kastiel's work is available for download on his SSRN webpage. 

Education
2016	S.J.D., Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA
2008	LL.M., Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA
2005	LL.B. (magna cum laude), Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University
2005	B.A., School of Economics, Tel Aviv University

 

Academic Appointments

2020-Present	Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel-Aviv University, Associate Professor
2018-2020	Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel-Aviv University, Assistant Professor
2018-2020	Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School

 

Former Positions

2016-2018	Research Director, The Project on Controlling Shareholders, Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance
2008-2012	Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Corporate Associate
2005-2007	Israel Supreme Court, Law Clerk to Justice Asher D. Grunis (formerly the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) and Senior Law Clerk to Justice Salim Joubran

 

Full CV (pdf)

Corporate Law, Corporate Governance, Controlling Shareholders, Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate Reorganization, Economic Analysis of the Law, Political Economy, Comparative Corporate Law

 

How Twitter Pushed Stakeholders Under The Bus, Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance (2023), Forthcoming (with Lucian A. Bebchuk & Anna Toniolo)

 

How Much Do Investors Care about Social Responsibility, Wisconsin Law Review (2023), Forthcoming (with Scott Hirst & Tamar Kricheli-Katz)

 

Superstar CEOs and Corporate Governance, Washington University Law Review (2023), Forthcoming (with Assaf Hamdani) 

 

Stakeholder Capitalism in the Time of COVID, Yale Journal on Regulation (2023), Forthcoming (with Lucian A. Bebchuk & Roberto Tallarita)

 

The Rise of Bankruptcy Directors, Southern California Law Review (2022), Forthcoming (with Jared Elias and Ehud Kamar)

 

Lucian Bebchuk and the Study of Corporate Governance, Chicago Law Review (2021)

-  Prepared for an upcoming issue of The University of Chicago Law Review on the most-cited legal scholars

 

The Corporate Governance Gap, Yale Law Journal (2022), Forthcoming (with Yaron Nili)

 

For Whom Corporate Leaders Bargain, Southern California Law Review (2021), Forthcoming (with Lucian Bebchuk and Roberto Tallarita)

 

The Giant Shadow of Corporate Gadflies, 94 Southern California Law Review (2021), Forthcoming (with Yaron Nili)

 

Competing for Votes, 10 Harvard Business Law Review (2020) (with Yaron Nili)

 

Long Term Bias, Incentives, and Agency Costs, Columbia Business Law Review (2020)

-  Invited comment to Michal Barzuza and Eric Talley’s article, Long-Term Bias.

 

Corporate Governance by Index Exclusion, 99 Boston University Law Review 1229-78 (2019) (with Scott Hirst)

 

The Perils of Small-Minority Controllers, Georgetown Law Journal (2019), Forthcoming (with Lucian A. Bebchuk)

 

Global Antitakeover Devices, 36 Yale Journal on Regulation 117-164 (2018) (with Adi Libson)

 

The 'Hidden' Tax Cost of Executive Compensation, 70 Stanford Law Review Online 179 (2018) (with Noam Noked)

 

The Untenable Case for Perpetual Dual-class Stock, Virginia Law Review (2017), Forthcoming 
(with Lucian A. Bebchuk)
 

“Captured Boards”: The Rise of "Super Directors" and the Case for a Board Suite, Wisconsin Law Review (2017), Forthcoming (with Yaron Nili)
-  Won the Best Paper Award, Weinberg Center’s 2017 Corporate Governance Symposium

 

In Search of the “Absent Shareholders”: A New Solution to Retail Investors’ Apathy, 41 Delaware Journal of Corporate Law 55 (2016) (with Yaron Nili)
 

Against All Odds: Hedge Fund Activism in Controlled Companies, 16 Columbia Business Law Review 60 (2016)
-  Won the HLS Victor Brudney Prize for an outstanding paper in the area of corporate law

 

Executive Compensation in Controlled Companies, 90 Indiana Law Journal 1,131 (2015)
 -  Won the HLS John M. Olin Prize for an outstanding paper in the area of law & economics

 

Publications in Hebrew:

 

Will Shareholders Save the Planet?, Tel Aviv University Law Review (2024) (with Jonathan Bukshpan)

 

Towards Adoption of Business Judgement Rule in Cooperatives? Comments following the Kfar Bialik Case, in Salim Joubran Book (2023) (with Shani Weiss & Shai Noam)

 

Nomination of Directors in Israel: Theory, Evidence, Policy, Hebrew University Law Review (2022) (with Asaf Eckstein)

 

Derivative Lawsuits in Israel, Law & Business (2021), Forthcoming (with Assaf Hamdani and Maayan Weisman)

-  Invited Article for a special volume celebrating 10 years to the Economic Division

 

Diffused Ownership, Control and Director Appointments by Institutional Investors, Colman Law Review (2021), Forthcoming (with Assaf Hamdani)

-  Invited Article for a special volume celebrating 20 years to Israeli Companies Law

 

Authority without Liability? A Response to Proposal to Eliminate Officers' Liability under Insolvency Law, 43 Tel Aviv Law Review (2020) (with Ehud Kamar)

 

Calculating Expectation Damages in Risk-Intensive Ventures, 47 Hebrew University Law Review 413 (2018), (with Yotam Kaplan).