This paper investigates the role that shareholders may play in corporate governance by analysing the European Shareholder Rights' Directive n. 36/2007/EC and the consequences of its implementation upon general meetings and ownership structure of Italian listed companies. It summarises the rules...

This paper sheds light on a structural problem affecting all M&A laws: deals are complex and unique, while the law is general. In particular, target companies have a particular ownership structure that must fit the paradigm contemplated by the law, which in the European Union consists almost...

European corporate law and corporate governance are moving ahead beyond expectation. Some British voices called this “a renaissance in the past decade”. In December 2012, the European Commission came forward with an Action Plan that combines both corporate law and corporate governance rules...

Failure in bank corporate governance has been seen as a contributing factor to excessive risk-taking pre-crisis with devastating implications as risks realised during the financial crisis. Unfortunately, the empirical evidence on the impact of managerial incentives on bank crisis performance is...

The paper examines the relationship between share ownership by boards of British stock exchange listed companies and accrual based earnings management. It provides the first empirical evidence that the relationship is impacted by UK Company Law and the institutional governance framework.We...

Based on a unique and consistent dataset of firm ownership in Europe, we set out to systematically catalogue and categorise owners of European equities by type (i.e. family, institutional etc.), and show the importance of ownership coalitions to achieving control. We also highlight the...

We investigate how family ownership influences the industry-diversifying nature of M&As by listed companies in Continental Europe and the corresponding shareholder value effects at deal announcement. For a large sample of 3,485 M&As during 2005–2013, we observe that acquirers having a family...

This paper investigates the impact of legal tradition and firm size on investment performance for firms in 16 European countries. Europe as a region is of special interest in this sense since the legal systems differs widely within a concentrated geographical area. Anglo Saxon, German, French as...

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...