‘Crowdfunding' — raising capital through large numbers of small contributions — is a burgeoning phenomenon, spurred by the internet's capacity to reduce communication costs. Its still-evolving status is reflected in diversity of contracting practices: for example, ‘equity' crowdfunders...

Unlike the US, the European Union has a tradition of national securities laws significantly differ-ing from each other. Regulatory idiosyncrasies largely remain today despite recent efforts aiming at more comprehensive harmonization. In addition, in important respects, the current conflict of...

This essay takes stock of the corporate governance reform efforts Italian policymakers have engaged in since the beginning of the 1990s. After describing the reform process and its drivers (a concern for Italian equity markets’ attractiveness in an increasingly competitive and global...

Shareholder activism by hedge funds has over the past few years become a major corporate governance phenomenon. This paper puts the trend into context. The paper begins by distinguishing the “offensive” form of activism hedge funds engage in from “defensive” interventions...

This paper, which was prepared for a University of Illinois College of Law symposium honoring Prof. Larry Ribstein, examines the origins of the market for corporate control in the United States. The standard historical narrative is that the market for corporate control took on its modern form in...

Entrepreneurs, catalysts for innovation in the economy, are increasingly the object of policymakers' attention. Recent initiatives both in the UK and at EU level have sought to promote entrepreneurship by reducing the harshness of the consequences of personal bankruptcy law. Whilst there is an...