The role of outside directors is one of the key features in the transatlantic corporate governance debate. As their importance rises, their liability is also attracting attention. Since there are only a few cases internationally in which outside directors of listed companies have been held...

This paper analyses the German corporate law reform's effect on the publicly listed companies' ownership and performance. First, theoretically plausible implications of the most important laws that were issued 1990-2009 are provided, then an empirical analysis using 1997-2008 panel data...

The chapter continues and advances our earlier research on ‘Board Models in Europe’.** We explore ‘The Structure of the Board of Directors’ with a view to the basic governance structure as provided by a board model vis-à-vis techniques of structuring the decision-making body, which can...

The dialogue of the board and its chairman with investors is an established practice in many countries, such as the United Kingdom, the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and recently also Germany. In the UK this dialogue covers the whole range of relevant board topics, certainly including...

This paper contrasts the recent European initiatives on regulating corporate groups with alternative approaches to the phenomenon. In doing so it pays particular regard to the German codified law on corporate groups as the polar opposite to the piecemeal approach favored by E.U. legislation. It...

The fiduciary duty of members of a business association has its origins in partnership law. The unlimited liability to which partners are exposed requires a relationship of mutual loyalty and trust in order to ensure that membership rights such as the right to represent the partners, the right...

Corporate Governance has developed immensely in the last decades mainly due to the negative effects on shareholders's of management decisions leading to a continuous conflict to be solved by the policymakers and academics. After the publication of the Cadbury Report, we noticed an increase...

German corporate law in the 20th century was marked by a steady flow of reforms molding and shaping the corporation. Having started at the outset of the century with a corporate governance model revolving around shareholder power (at least according to the law in the books), the reform of 1937...

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...