Most directors and senior managers of UK companies would likely regard it as trite law that, in undertaking their managerial and/or control functions, they are accountable first and foremost to their employer firm's general body of shareholders. It follows that the interests of other corporate...

This paper analyses a longitudinal dataset on legal protection of shareholders over a 36 year period, 970-2005 for four advanced countries, UK, France, Germany and the US. It examines two aspects of the legal origin hypothesis - whether shareholder protection is higher in the common law...

The developments of company law in countries belonging to five legal families illustrate the principle-agent conflicts that company law faces and the range of solutions it offers to cope with them. Comparative company law is about learning from each other's experience in a competitive way, and...

This chapter offers a twofold shift in the application of the ‘credible commitment' concept laid down by North and Weingast in their classic 1989 article. It examines the concept in the context of charter-granting, rather than in that of the national debt and the government bond market, and...

This chapter deals with fundamental issues of corporate insolvency law. Particular attention is paid to the agency problems related to “bankruptcy governance” and how these are addressed in various jurisdictions. Methodologically, the chapter is based on a functional approach that compares...

Starting from the observation that at the multilateral level shareholder activism is considered as an important aspect of good corporate governance, this paper examines several legal and economic obstacles to institutional investor activism in the EU and in the US. We find that investors in the...

In August 2007 the United Kingdom experienced its first bank run in over 140 years. Although Northern Rock was not a particularly large bank (it was at the time ranked 7th in terms of assets) it was nevertheless a significant retail bank and a substantial mortgage lender. In fact, ten years...

In August 2007 the United Kingdom experienced its first bank run in over 140 years. Although Northern Rock was not a particularly large bank (it was at the time ranked 7th in terms of assets) it was nevertheless a significant retail bank and a substantial mortgage lender. In fact, ten years...

Kryzys finansowy i gospodarczy, który wybuchł w 2007-2008 r. skłonił rządy, UE i instytucje międzynarodowe do podjęcia prób wskazania jego źródeł, analiz przebiegu i ustanowienia mechanizmów mających zapobiec powtórzeniu takim sytuacjom. Okazało się bowiem, że w warunkach...