Jayne W. Barnard (William & Mary Law School) has posted Corporate Therapeutics at the Securities and Exchange Commission (Columbia Business Law Review, 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The Securities and Exchange Commission in recent years has often employed its remedial powers to shape corporate governance norms. By negotiating "therapeutic undertakings" as a condition of settlement, the SEC has forced scores of corporations to redesign their boards, fire top executives, realign incentives, create compliance bureaucracies, and submit to the oversight of unaccountable consultants. In this Article, Professor Barnard examines the origins, evolution, and current use of therapeutic sanctions at the SEC. She then explores the most problematic aspects of the SEC's current practice and proposes several corrective measures