This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

A case-based approach to comparative company law / David Cabrelli and Mathias Siems -- General case on directors duties / Theis Klauberg -- Duties of nominee directors / Martin Gelter, Memika Gha and D Gordon Smith -- Obligations of directors in takeovers / Pablo Iglesias-Rodríguez --...

Using ownership and control data for 890 firm-years, this paper examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern-day standards. This implies that ownership...