Economics is increasingly adopting the methodological standards and procedures of the naturalsciences. The paper analyzes this ‘naturalistic turn’ from the philosophical perspective onnaturalism, and I discuss the implications for the field of finance. The theory of finance is aninteresting...

This article analyses the recent Leica judgement of the Higher Regional Court Frankfurt/Mainand its consequences. In this judgement, the court has established an infringement of specialformal requirements with respect to Leica´s invitation to the Annual General Meeting which,if correct, would...

Since summer 2007 the Subprime credit crisis has been affecting the international financialmarkets. One of the consequences of the crisis was the collapse of the market for large-sizedleveraged buyout transactions in late 2007 and early 2008.The goal of this Working Paper is to examine to what...

In 2004 the Basel Committee published an extensive revision of the capital charges whichcreates more risk sensitive capital requirements for banks. The New Accord called “InternationalConvergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standard” provides in its first pillarfor a finer measurement...

This report analyses the possibility to outflank disclosure obligations under the German SecuritiesTrading Act as well as the German Takeover Act by using derivative instruments in thecontext of the attack of Schaeffler KG on Continental AG.Irrespective of a limited knowledge of the complete...

Tax fraud is a serious problem for fiscal authorities worldwide, not only in countries regarded as “hightax”like Germany. Besides long-term tax reforms, tax amnesties are used to bring back taxableamounts into the legal sector. The German tax amnesty of 2004/2005 was one of the last examples...

Innovations in the finance industry are an important tool to enhance profitability and to increase anation's wealth. It, therefore, is not astonishing that there is much empirical work on innovations infinance. Most of the work however is concerned with the design of innovative products. The...

SMEs play a crucial role for European economies. The numbers show the high importance ofSMEs for national economies. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the regulatory frameworkSMEs are imbedded in is the subject of an important political discussion. In the discussion itis frequently mentioned...

Several investigations came to the conclusion that, considering in retrospect, most Mergers &Acquisitions were not successful. Differences in the corporate cultures are often quoted asbeing responsible for the failures. So, the question arises how such failures can be preventedin future....

China’s banking market is one of the most attractive investment targets for financial institutionsworldwide especially since the opening up of the market in December 2006. Based oninterviews with experts this paper analyses the question of benefits and risks of foreign directinvestments into...