Event Date
Click HERE to livestream the event
Since its inception 400 years ago, the corporation has become the world’s most powerful engine for seeding and scaling new businesses. But corporations have a dark side: The fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value can lead corporations to bend rules that protect customers and employees. To solve this problem, James Wigginton and a group of leaders called the Blockchain Cooperative Coalition are advancing legislation called Regulation Membership, which would make it easy for customers to become co-owners of the businesses they use every day. Using Regulation Membership, investor-owned businesses can transform into customer-owned businesses — the same way caterpillars transform into butterflies — allowing businesses to harness both the growth potential of corporations and the customer welfare benefits of cooperatives over the course of the business lifecycle.
James Wigginton is a venture capital and technology attorney at Orrick. He focuses on developing legal structures that can be used to facilitate customer ownership of sports teams, social networks, commerce platforms, and more. James is a graduate of BYU, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford Law School. He began his legal career as a clerk for Judge Richard W. Goldberg of the US Court for International Trade, and he worked as a transactional attorney doing public securities offerings and M&A at Sullivan & Cromwell before returning to his native Sacramento.
Sponsored by CBLS. Lunch provided.