Executive pay has become a regulatory flashpoint of the global financial crisis. In contrast to the traditional non-interventionist approach to executive compensation, it has galvanized regulators around the world to search for effective responses to the perceived problem of executive pay. These...

This article explores the rising tension between shareholder and director power in the common law world. First the article analyzes key arguments in the shareholder empowerment debate, and current US reform proposals to grant shareholders stronger rights, from a comparative corporate law...

We use the history of private limited liability companies (PLLCs) to challenge two pervasive assumptions in the literature: (1) Anglo-American legal institutions were better for economic development than continental Europe’s civil-law institutions; and (2) the corporation was the superior form...

We use the history of private limited liability companies (PLLCs) to challenge two pervasive assumptions in the literature: (1) Anglo-American legal institutions were better for economic development than continental Europe's civil-law institutions; and (2) the corporation was the superior form...

British general incorporation law granted companies an extraordinary degree of contractual freedom to craft their own governance rules. It provided companies with a default set of articles of association, but incorporators were free to reject any part or all of the model and write their own...

This article recalls the fact that in Britain (and elsewhere), until the mid-19th century, neither company legislation, nor jurists or economists, envisioned companies to be private or small. Nevertheless, once freedom of incorporation and general limited liability were enacted, a new practice...

This paper explains the increasing popularity of social entrepreneurship and analyzes its company law consequences. Faced with tight budgets, governments are looking to the private sector to develop businesses that serve the interests of the public. Social entrepreneurship is gaining momentum as...

The paper analyzes the role of financial regulation in facilitating the development of organizational norms to enhance risk culture in banking institutions. Specifically, it examines the regulatory responses and industry-led initiatives taken since the financial crisis of 2007-08 to address...

Long-established major U.S. corporations such as McDonalds, Walmart, and Proctor and Gamble continue to derive a majority of revenues from foreign operations. In addition, a number of relatively new U.S. technology companies such as: Airbnb (2008); Facebook (2004); Snap (2011); Twitter (2006);...

In 2010, to a Philadelphia audience, B Lab co-founder Jay Coen Gilbert claimed that “our capitalist system is not serving society; it's serving shareholders” and stated that “we can't run around expecting different outcomes until we change the rules of the game.” Since Gilbert's talk in...