Between 2006 and 2010 approximately 32 finance companies went into receivership, liquidation or were bailed out by the Government in New Zealand. The total combined outstanding debt from these failures exceeds NZD$5.3 billion. Excessive, unregulated, and in some cases, undisclosed, related party...

The law on self dealing, fair dealing and related party transactions has a long and complex history and different approaches have been adopted by common law jurisdictions. This article traces the history of the Anglo American case law and legislation and the underlying policies and considers...

This article aims to address some of the more conceptual questions about companies sitting behind two recent cases. Lord Scott in the House of Lords described Stone & Rolls as difficult but the facts in Stone & Rolls and Safeway could hardly be simpler. Stone & Rolls involved a claim by a...

New Zealand has the reputation as a pioneering nation in policy reform- it was the first to introduce a comprehensive no fault based system for accident compensation, it had an early form of the welfare state, it embraced the economic reforms of the 1980s, and it was the first country to allow...

The Financial Crisis of 2008–09 raises questions about the assumptions that underpin corporate governance. Shareholder value and private ordering may not in fact be the best means of promoting efficiency and corporate responsibility, and the mechanisms that have been traditionally used to...

The Bubble Act of 1720 made corporate charters relatively difficult to obtain. As a response to the Bubble Act and prior to the general right to incorporation by registration in the mid-Nineteenth Century, an early form of unincorporated company developed in the United Kingdom. The deeds of...

With talk of driverless companies and bots substituting for human beings on company boards either in part or completely, the spectre of a future controlled by entities devoid of human beings is upon us. But has the future been here for longer than we all realise; has the corporation really...

This chapter explores the experiences of a group of New Zealand-based organizations from a range of industries and sectors in responding to the challenges wrought by COVID-19. Focusing on the board of directors, we relate the lived experiences of CEOs, board chairs and directors in handling the...

This Element deals with leadership and governance of corporations from the point of view of the board. We expand our understanding of board leadership by focusing on the modern company as a legal person comprised of a capital fund and the relationships among directors, shareholders, management...