Corporations in Public-Private Partnerships: Emerging Risks for Boards

The post-Cold War globalization wave beginning in the 1990’s created a boom in the US governments’ use in private corporations rather than their own departments and agencies to advance governmental goals and policies. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the global financial meltdown of 2008 globalization slowed, nationalism and economic decoupling gained steam, and great-power rivalry intensified. In this more volatile geo-political environment, the interests of government and private corporations are increasingly prone conflict. Although the increased potential for conflict of interests has not dampened the appetite for public-private partnerships, it has made those partnerships more difficult to manage and created added risks for private corporations. This article concludes by discussing how corporations, their directors and officers and advisers can manage those risks. But first, it gives a thumb-nail history of the use public-private partnerships in the US and then discusses the trends in the last three decades that have made it more difficult to manage the risks that are inherent to the public-private partnership structure.  READ MORE