Keith Paul Bishop

Keith Paul Bishop

Keith Bishop works with privately-held and publicly-traded companies on federal and state corporate and securities transactions, compliance, and governance matters. He is highly-regarded for his in-depth knowledge of the distinctive corporate and regulatory requirements faced by corporations in the state of California. While many law firms have a great deal of expertise in federal or Delaware corporate law, Keith’s specific focus on California corporate and securities law is uncommon. A former California state regulator of securities and financial institutions, Keith has decades of experience navigating the regulatory-intensive state’s rules. For companies with substantial operations in California but incorporated elsewhere, Keith is an exceptional resource. He is frequently called in to help with issues arising under California’s “blue sky” and lender laws. An avid writer, Keith’s blog, www.calcorporatelaw.com, covers a diverse collection of California corporate and securities law issues and has served as a valued resource for other attorneys, business executives, judges, and media, nationwide.

Recent Posts

Court Holds That Exempt Lender May Violate California Usury Statute

If you're interested in California's usury law, you have to look in several places: the Constitution, uncodified initiative measures, codes and case law. When Woodrow Wilson was occupying the White House, the people of California approved a series...

Why Some Delaware Corporations Will Want To Waive This California Statute

In yesterday's post, I commented on a recent ruling by former Vice Chancellor John W. Noble to the effect that "Delaware disclosure law which generally does not require disclosures to shareholders unless shareholder action is sought".  The Ravenswood...

Why Some Delaware Corporations Should Be Careful About Relying On This Vice Chancellor's Ruling

Francis Pileggi in his Delaware Corporate & Commercial Litigation Blog recently wrote that there is no per se duty on the part of a closely held company to disclose financial statements .  In The Ravenswood Investment Company, L.P. v. Winmill & Co....

Bill Aims To Put The Kibosh On Alleged Hedge Fund Stock Price Manipulation

The California Corporate Securities Law has long declared a number of manipulative devices to be unlawful.  See Cal. Corp. Code § 25400.  Now, a California legislator wants to add to the list.  As amended last week, SB 726 (Hueso) would insert a new...

In California, Mayhem May Not Be What You See On Television

While watching the NCAA tournament, I sat through several replays of this Allstate commercial featuring an anthropomorphized mayhem. The advertisement is one of a series featuring actor Dean Winters as the cause of all manner of "mayhem". Although...

Bagley-Keene Act Roils State Bar Committees

Today, the California State Bar becomes subject to the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act (Cal. Gov't Gov't Code § 11120 et seq. ). The Bagley-Keene Act generally requires multimember state bodies to provide public notice of their meetings, prepare...

Is The Delaware General Corporation Law Really A Modern Corporate Law?

I often hear it said that Delaware has a modern corporate law.  In reading a recently filed proxy statement, for example, I came across the following assertion:

Citizenship And The California Securities Laws

I often hear lawyers say something along the lines of "We need to find an exemption from the California Corporate Securities Law because one of the investors is a citizen of California". The citizenship or residency of a purchaser, however, doesn't...

SEC Alleges LLC Names Were "Deceptively Similar", But What Would The California SOS Do?

Yesterday, the SEC announced that it had filed a complaint against a securities professional alleging that he had defrauded "two institutions he solicited to invest in a shell company he controlled whose name was deceptively similar to that of a...