n today's world, the transfer of laws and regulations between different legal systems is commonplace. The global spread of stewardship codes in recent years presents a promising, but yet untested, terrain to explore the diffusion of such norms. This paper aims to fill this gap. Employing the...

This paper discusses whether the forthcoming reform of market abuse law, as proposed by the EU Commission in October 2011, may be seen as a ‘revolution' or a mere ‘evolution'. Section 1 explains the topicality of regulating market abuse (ie insider dealing and market manipulation), both in...

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...

The OECD Principles of Corporate Governance are a networked form of governance predominantly aimed at the law-makers and firms of emerging markets. This chapter discusses whether the approach of the OECD Principles can be regarded as a success. Our analysis provides a mixed response. While...

This paper analyses the impact of the EU market abuse law on share repurchases. We find that the Member States' previous rules differed considerably, and therefore it can be said that the Regulation on share repurchases has provided uniformity as to the availability of a safe harbor for share...

How different are common law and civil law legal systems? This question has occupied legal scholars for a long time. In the last 15 years the common law/civil law divide has also become a major theme in research of economics, finance and business. In many studies it is alleged that English legal...

“Comparative law and finance” quantifies differences in the laws governing the business enterprise in various countries. The resulting data can be used to test which legal institutions (if any) matter for financial development. Until recently only cross-sectional data were available. We...

Since the law on market abuse in EU countries has in recent years become predominantly European-based, it makes sense to address this area of law from a European point of view. However, there is, so far, no European case law on the new market abuse regime. This article therefore uses some...

This article discusses the plans of the European Commission to harmonise shareholder rights in the European Union. At the same time, it puts forward various reasons why this would not be a significant step forward and argues that it should therefore be reconsidered whether the intended directive...

The OECD promotes the 2015 version of the Principles of Corporate Governance as a means ‘to support investment as a powerful driver of growth'. But how realistic is this ambition? This paper provides a critical assessment of the operation and impact of these Principles. It maps the governance...