Dr. Kobi Kastiel

Kobi Kastiel is a tenured, Associate Professor at Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance, and as a Lecturer of Law at Harvard Law School. Kastiel teaches and researches in the fields of  corporate law, corporate governance, comparative corporate law, financial and securities regulation, with a particular focus on public companies with controlling shareholders, and shareholder activism. Kastiel earned his S.J.D. and LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where he also served as a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and as a fellow at the Program on Corporate Governance. He also holds an LL.B. degree (magna cum laude) and B.A. degree in economics from Tel Aviv University. Prior to joining Tel-Aviv University, he was a Research Director at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance, and a Co-Editor of the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. He also practiced for four years in the corporate group of a top New York law firm, and clerked on the Israeli Supreme Court.

Academic Appointments

Former Positions

Full CV (pdf)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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