From a law-and-economics perspective the primary goal of (legal) remedies is to enhance social welfare by minimising social costs. Remedies help to achieve cost internalisation since they provide means by which third parties who are negatively affected by the respective action are entitled to...

Despite its age, the longstanding debate surrounding corporate rights and duties remains unresolved. Until today, the type and scope of corporate rights and duties, as well as the manner by which they are assigned, are both contested and evolving. The questions at stake are manifold. For...

In recent years, a number of international and cross-sectoral initiatives have attempted to respond to the human rights impacts of corporations. Foremost among these is the United Nations’ 2008 “Protect, Respect, and Remedy” Framework and its Guiding Principles on Business and Human...

In this chapter, we examine the conceptualization of the corporation in private law, focusing particularly on categorization functions served by the corporate form. We argue that corporations are conceptualized as a distinctive kind of legal actor, their legal agency being constituted by private...

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...

Artificial Intelligence (hereafter: AI) is transforming our everyday life in many important respects. The corporate realm is no exception. Many corporations cannot avoid facing the variety of issues raised by the increasing importance that AI plays within firms. Can an AI-based system be...

The problem of managerial agency costs dominates debates in corporate law. Many leading scholars advocate reforms that would reduce agency costs by forcing firms to allocate more control to shareholders. Such proposals disregard the costs that shareholders avoid by delegating control to managers...

In revisiting apparent contradictions within the Supreme Court's decision in BCE Inc. v. 1976 Debentureholders, this article illustrates a significant evolution in the jurisprudence – challenging the applicability of both shareholder primacy and stakeholder theory. In rejecting these...

The rise of large business corporations in the late nineteenth century compelled many American observers to admit that the nature of the corporation had yet to be understood. Published in this context, Ernst Freund's (1897) little-known The Legal Nature of Corporations was an original attempt to...

This paper is the first chapter of the third edition of The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach, by Reinier Kraakman, John Armour, Paul Davies, Luca Enriques, Henry Hansmann, Gerard Hertig, Klaus Hopt, Hideki Kanda Mariana Pargendler, Georg Ringe, and Edward Rock...