This research handbook provides a state-of-the-art perspective on how corporate governance differs between countries around the world. It covers highly topical issues including corporate purpose, corporate social responsibility and shareholder activism.
When comparing the laws of different jurisdictions, one often sees only the forest or the trees. This is particularly problematic in comparative company law, where students hope both to understand the overall framework of the law and grasp its practical application. This text's structure, now in its second edition, solves that dilemma. Chapters open with discursive analyses of the law in each of Germany, the UK and the US (Delaware, the ABA Model Business Corporation Act, and federal securities laws) and set out the high-level governing framework, particularly for the EU and its member states. This analysis is succinct and pointed, with numerous references to both the law and leading scholarship. The whole text is arranged to highlight comparative aspects. Diagrams are used where helpful. Chapters close with edited judicial decisions from at least two of the jurisdictions discussed, which allows fresh exploration of comparison in more detail, and pointed questions to guide class discussion.
Comparative Company Law provides a systematic and coherent exposition of company law across jurisdictions, augmented by extracts taken from key judgments, legislation, and scholarly works. It provides an overview of the legal framework of company law in the US, the UK, Germany, and France, as well as the legislative measures adopted by the EU and the relevant case law of the Court of Justice. The comparative analysis of legal frameworks is firmly grounded in legal history and legal and economic theory and bolstered by numerous extracts (including extracts in translation) that offer the reader an invaluable insight into how the law operates in context. The book is an essential guide to how company law cuts across borders, and how different jurisdictions shape the corporate lifespan from its formation by way of incorporation to its demise (corporate insolvency) and eventual dissolution. In addition, it offers an introduction to the nature of the corporation, the framework of EU company law, incorporation and corporate representation, agency problems in the firm, rights of stakeholders and shareholders, neutrality and defensive measures in corporate control transactions, legal capital, piercing the corporate veil, and corporate insolvency and restructuring law.
As attention moves rapidly towards comparative approaches, the research and teaching of company law has somehow lagged behind. The overall purpose of this book is therefore to fill a gap in the literature by identifying whether conceptual differences between countries exist. Rather than concentrate on whether the institutional structure of the corporation varies across jurisdictions, the objective of this book will be pursued by focusing on specific cases and how different countries might treat each of these cases. The book also has a public policy dimension, because the existence or absence of differences may lead to the question of whether formal harmonisation of company law is necessary. The book covers 12 legal systems from different legal traditions and from different parts of the world (though with a special emphasis on European countries). In alphabetical order, those countries are: Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain, the UK, and the US. All of these jurisdictions are subjected to scrutiny by deploying a comparative case-based study. On the basis of these case solutions, various conclusions are reached, some of which challenge established orthodoxies in the field of comparative company law.
Corporate law and corporate governance have been at the forefront of regulatory activities across the world for several decades now, and are subject to increasing public attention following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance provides the global framework necessary to understand the aims and methods of legal research in this field. Written by leading scholars from around the world, the Handbook contains a rich variety of chapters that provide a comparative and functional overview of corporate governance. It opens with the central theoretical approaches and methodologies in corporate law scholarship in Part I, before examining core substantive topics in corporate law, including shareholder rights, takeovers and restructuring, and minority rights in Part II. Part III focuses on new challenges in the field, including conflicts between Western and Asian corporate governance environments, the rise of foreign ownership, and emerging markets. Enforcement issues are covered in Part IV, and Part V takes a broader approach, examining those areas of law and finance that are interwoven with corporate governance, including insolvency, taxation, and securities law as well as financial regulation. The Handbook is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary resource placing corporate law and governance in its wider context, and is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in the field.
An analytical overview of the regulation of shareholder activism in the UK and Germany. The book shows how the comparative legal method can be used in the study of the corporate governance systems of different countries. It deals with the regulation of the governance of listed companies within a wide framework that recognises the importance of company law, securities markets law, standards and internal rule-making.
This is the long-awaited third edition of this highly regarded comparative overview of corporate law. This edition has been comprehensively revised and updated to reflect the profound changes in corporate law and governance practices that have taken place since the previous edition. These include numerous regulatory changes following the financial crisis of 2007-09 and the changing landscape of governance, especially in the US, with the ever more central role of institutional investors as (active) owners of corporations. The geographic scope of the coverage has been broadened to include an important emerging economy, Brazil. In addition, the book now incorporates analysis of the burgeoning use of corporate law to protect the interests of "external constituencies" without any contractual relationship to a company, in an attempt to tackle broader social and economic problems. The authors start from the premise that corporations (or companies) in all jurisdictions share the same key legal attributes: legal personality, limited liability, delegated management, transferable shares, and investor ownership. Businesses using the corporate form give rise to three basic types of agency problems: those between managers and shareholders as a class; controlling shareholders and minority shareholders; and shareholders as a class and other corporate constituencies, such as corporate creditors and employees. After identifying the common set of legal strategies used to address these agency problems and discussing their interaction with enforcement institutions, The Anatomy of Corporate Law illustrates how a number of core jurisdictions around the world deploy such strategies. In so doing, the book highlights the many commonalities across jurisdictions and reflects on the reasons why they may differ on specific issues. The analysis covers the basic governance structure of the corporation, including the powers of the board of directors and the shareholder meeting, both when management and when a dominant shareholder is in control. It then analyses the role of corporate law in shaping labor relationships, protection of external stakeholders, relationships with creditors, related-party transactions, fundamental corporate actions such as mergers and charter amendments, takeovers, and the regulation of capital markets. The Anatomy of Corporate Law has established itself as the leading book in the field of comparative corporate law. Across the world, students and scholars at various stages in their careers, from undergraduate law students to well-established authorities in the field, routinely consult this book as a starting point for their inquiries.
The business corporation is one of the greatest organizational inventions, but it creates risks both for shareholders and for third parties. To mitigate these risks, legislators, judges, and corporate lawyers have tried to learn from foreign experiences and adapt their regulatory regimes to them. In the last three decades, this approach has led to a stream of corporate and capital market law reforms unseen before. Corporate governance, the system by which companies are directed and controlled, is today a key topic for legislation, practice, and academia all over the world. Corporate scandals and financial crises have repeatedly highlighted the need to better understand the economic, social, political, and legal determinants of corporate governance in individual countries. Comparative Corporate Governance furthers this goal by bringing together current scholarship in law and economics with the expertise of local corporate governance specialists from twenty-three countries.