Company Law in Context is an ideal main text for company law and corporate governance courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. In this sophisticated book, David Kershaw combines commentary and explanation (55%) with the primary case and statutory materials (45%). The book places the study of company law in its economic, business, and social context in order to make more accessible and relevant the cases, statutes, and other forms of regulation that make up company law. One technique deployed by the book to contextualise company law is the use of a simple case study that tracks, through the different chapters of the book, the development and expansion of a business - from sole trader to listed company.
Online Resource Centre
Company Law in Context is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre offering the following features for students:
- twice-yearly updates to changes in cases and legislation (particularly important given the recent implementation of the Companies Act 2006)
- annotated web links to key online sources, directing students to the most accurate, up-to-date and relevant information on the web
- timeline illustrating implementation of Companies Act 2006.
- additional chapters on The Market for Corporate Control; Disclosure, Accounting, and Audit; and Issuing Shares to the Public
The following resources are also provided for lecturers:
- diagrams and charts in PowerPoint to show in lectures and seminars to facilitate students' understanding of challenging cases and concepts

Die Aktionarsstruktur deutscher boersennotierter Gesellschaften andert sich drastisch. Weltweit nimmt der Shareholder Activism zu. Die Europaische Union hat den Wert einer aktiven Eigentumerschaft erkannt. Die Aktionarsrechterichtlinie setzte der deutsche Staat mit dem ARUG II um. Die Publikation untersucht, ob Dialoge zwischen Investoren und dem Aufsichtsrat rechtlich zulassig sind. Es findet ein Rechtstransfer der angelsachsischen Regelungen vom UKCGC auf den DCGK statt. Der Autor schlagt erganzende Formulierungen fur die Anregung A.3 DCGK vor und entwirft eine Kommunikationsordnung. Wichtig ist nicht nur, ob Investorendialoge rechtlich erlaubt sind, sondern auch, wie sie real durchzufuhren sind. Dabei ist insbesondere die Frage relevant, wie die Arbeitnehmerseite einzubeziehen ist.

Under English law it is possible to secure credit on almost any asset, but the law is widely considered to be unsatisfactory. Gerard McCormack examines English law and highlights its weaknesses. He uses Article 9 of the American Uniform Commercial Code as a reference point for reform. This Article has successfully serviced the world's largest economy for over 40 years and is increasingly used as the basis for legislation by Commonwealth jurisdictions--including Canada and New Zealand.

The regulation of the capital market has been in crisis since the start of the new millennium. A series of cases of fraud and company insolvencies on a scale never before experienced in Europe and overseas has resulted in the loss of billions and shattered the trust of investors in the capital market. This work examines the legal structures of the primary market and analyses possible methods of the further development of the German Investor Protection Act based on the example of the underwriting bank or rather the underwriting syndicate, which consists of several banks.

Studies of corporate governance traditionally focus on the governance problems of large publicly held firms, and policymakers' recommendations often focus on such firms. However most small firms, and in many countries, even many large companies, are non-listed. This book provides a comprehensive account of non-listed businesses and their particular governance problems. It explores current discussions and reforms in Europe, the United States, and Asia providing a state of the art account of the law and the economics. Non-listed firms encompass a vast range, from corporations with the potential to go public through family-owned firms, group-owned firms, private equity and hedge funds, to joint ventures and unlisted mass-privatized corporations with a relatively high number of shareholders. The governance of non-listed companies has traditionally been concerned with protecting investors and creditors from managerial opportunism. However, the virtual elimination of the distinction between partnerships and corporations means that an effective legal governance framework must also offer mechanisms to protect shareholders from the misconduct of other shareholders. This volume examines policy and economic measurements to develop a framework for understanding what constitutes good governance in non-listed companies. The authors examine how control is gained and explore the mechanisms that contribute to the development of a modern and efficient governance framework. The book concludes with an exploration of how the closely held firm is likely to stimulate growth and extend innovation and development.

This book explores the foundations and evolution of modern corporate fiduciary law in the United States and the United Kingdom. Today US and UK fiduciary law provide very different approaches to the regulation of directorial behaviour. However, as the book shows, the law in both jurisdictions borrowed from the same sources in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English fiduciary and commercial law. The book identifies the shared legal foundations and authorities and explores the drivers of corporate fiduciary law's contemporary divergence. In so doing it challenges the prevailing accounts of corporate legal change and stability in the US and the UK.

Law and Economics in European Merger Control provides a thorough introduction to the economic theory underlying the regulation of mergers. The central economic concepts of efficiency and welfare are introduced and their role in the foundations of competition law is explained. Market structures of perfect competition, monopoly and oligopoly are analysed and the methods for delineating and evaluating the effects of mergers on markets are explained.
Having examined the economic context, the book then proceeds to offer an exhaustive analysis of the application of economic theory in the practice of merger regulation in Europe. Through an analysis of more than 300 competition cases the book critiques the current state of EC competition law against its economic aims, and offers views for the future development of the law. It also sets out an account of the European Commission's search for a 'more economic approach' to competition law, and analyses the policy's successes and failures.

Buying and Selling Insolvent Companies and Businesses aims to be a comprehensive guide to its readers, being useful to insolvency practitioners and other professionals involved in insolvency, including lawyers, accountants, company directors and company secretaries. It is also of use to potential investors and their advisers as well as being of interest to students who may wish to specialise in insolvency. The new third edition has been updated to include: - Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 which brought in a new moratorium procedure and restructuring plan as permanent measures in response to COVID-19 - the impact of Brexit on insolvency laws - the impact of the significant rise in the use of company voluntary arrangements - the new Pensions bill, which will have an impact on advisors to insolvent companies

This is the long-awaited third edition of this highly regarded comparative overview of corporate law. This edition has been comprehensively revised and updated to reflect the profound changes in corporate law and governance practices that have taken place since the previous edition. These include numerous regulatory changes following the financial crisis of 2007-09 and the changing landscape of governance, especially in the US, with the ever more central role of institutional investors as (active) owners of corporations. The geographic scope of the coverage has been broadened to include an important emerging economy, Brazil. In addition, the book now incorporates analysis of the burgeoning use of corporate law to protect the interests of "external constituencies" without any contractual relationship to a company, in an attempt to tackle broader social and economic problems. The authors start from the premise that corporations (or companies) in all jurisdictions share the same key legal attributes: legal personality, limited liability, delegated management, transferable shares, and investor ownership. Businesses using the corporate form give rise to three basic types of agency problems: those between managers and shareholders as a class; controlling shareholders and minority shareholders; and shareholders as a class and other corporate constituencies, such as corporate creditors and employees. After identifying the common set of legal strategies used to address these agency problems and discussing their interaction with enforcement institutions, The Anatomy of Corporate Law illustrates how a number of core jurisdictions around the world deploy such strategies. In so doing, the book highlights the many commonalities across jurisdictions and reflects on the reasons why they may differ on specific issues. The analysis covers the basic governance structure of the corporation, including the powers of the board of directors and the shareholder meeting, both when management and when a dominant shareholder is in control. It then analyses the role of corporate law in shaping labor relationships, protection of external stakeholders, relationships with creditors, related-party transactions, fundamental corporate actions such as mergers and charter amendments, takeovers, and the regulation of capital markets. The Anatomy of Corporate Law has established itself as the leading book in the field of comparative corporate law. Across the world, students and scholars at various stages in their careers, from undergraduate law students to well-established authorities in the field, routinely consult this book as a starting point for their inquiries.

This investigation of the barriers to and opportunities for promoting environmental sustainability in company law provides an in-depth comparative analysis of company law regimes across the world. The social norm of shareholder primacy is the greatest barrier preventing progress, and it also helps explain why voluntary action by companies and investors is insufficient. By deconstructing the myth that shareholder primacy has a legal basis and challenging the economic postulates on which mainstream corporate governance debate is based, Company Law and Sustainability reveals a surprisingly large unexplored potential within current company law regimes for companies to reorient themselves towards sustainability. It also suggests possible methods of reforming the existing legal infrastructure for companies and provides an important contribution to the broader debate on how to achieve sustainability.

The US Department of Justice is under fire for failing to prosecute banks that caused the 2008 economic meltdown because they are too big to jail. Prosecutors have long neglected to hold corporate executives accountable for chronic mistakes that kill and injure workers and customers. This book, the first of its kind, analyzes five industrial catastrophes that have killed or sickened consumers and workers or caused irrevocable harm to the environment. From the Texas City refinery explosion to the Upper Big Branch mine collapse, the root causes of these preventable disasters include crimes of commission and omission. Although federal prosecutors have made a start on holding low-level managers liable, far more aggressive prosecution is appropriate as a matter of law, policy, and justice. Written in accessible and jargon-free language, this book recommends innovative interpretations of existing laws to elevate the prosecution of white-collar crime at the federal and state levels.

In EC Company Law Vanessa Edwards makes a detailed analysis of all the adopted company law and securities directives. She illuminates their historical context, scope, substantive effect, interpretation by the European Court of Justice and national implementation. This book also contains a thorough examination of the scope of companies freedom of establishment, reviewing in depth the case law of the Court of Justice on Article 52 of the EC Treaty in so far as it applies to corporate entities.

Theories of enterprise liability have, historically, had a significant influence on the development of various aspects of the law of torts. Enterprise liability has impacted upon both statutory and common law rules. Prime examples would include laws on workmen's compensation and products liability. Of late, in a number of jurisdictions, enterprise liability has been a powerful catalyst for change in the employer's responsibilities towards third parties by prompting changes to the law on vicarious liability. The results have been seen most dramatically where the employer's responsibility for the intentional torts of employees is concerned. Recent common law reforms have not been without controversy and have raised difficult and challenging questions about the appropriate scope of an employer's responsibility. In response to this, Douglas Brodie offers a critique of the employer's common law obligations, both in tort and under the law of contract of employment.

The Bribery Act 2010 is the most significant reform of UK bribery law in a century. This critical analysis offers an explanation of the Act, makes comparisons with similar legislation in other jurisdictions and provides a critical commentary, from both a UK and a US perspective, on the collapse of the distinction between public and private sector bribery. Drawing on their academic and practical experience, the contributors also analyse the prospects for enforcement and the difficulties facing lawyers seeking asset recovery following the laundering of the proceeds of bribery. International perspectives are provided via comparisons with the law in Spain, Hong Kong, the USA and Italy, together with broader analysis of the application of the law in relation to EU anti-corruption initiatives, international development and the arms trade.

Laws prohibiting unilateral anticompetitive conduct have been the subject of vigorous international debate for decades, as policymakers, antitrust scholars and agencies continue to disagree over how best to regulate the market conduct of a single firm with substantial market power. Katharine Kemp describes the controversy over Australia's misuse of market power laws in recent years, which mirrored the international debate in this sphere, and culminated in the fundamental reform of the misuse of market power prohibition under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) in 2017. Misuse of Market Power: Rationale and Reform explains Australia's new misuse of market power law, which adopts an 'effects-based test' for unilateral conduct, and makes a comparative analysis between Australian tests for unilateral anticompetitive conduct and tests from the US and the EU. This text also illuminates the frequently mentioned, but little understood, concept of 'purpose' and its role in framing unilateral conduct standards.

Company law is undergoing fundamental change in Europe. All European countries have undertaken extensive reform of their company legislation. Domestic reform has traditionally been driven by corporate failures or scandals. Initiatives to make corporate governance more effective are a feature of recent European law reform, as are measures to simplify and ease burdens on smaller and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). An increasing EU harmonisation is taking place through the Company Law Directives, and the free movement of companies is also facilitated by the case law of the European Court of Justice on the directives and the right to free movement and establishment in the EC Treaty. New European corporate forms such as the European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG) and the European Company (SE) have added new dimensions. At a time of rapid development of EU and national company laws, this book will aid the understanding of an emerging discipline.

This in-depth comparative examination of the derivative action in Asia provides a framework for analysing its function, history and practical application and examines in detail how derivative actions law works in practice in seven important Asian jurisdictions (China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore). These case studies allow an evaluation of a number of the leading Western comparative corporate law and governance theories which have come to define the field over the last decade. By debunking some of these critically important theories, this book lays the foundation for an accurate understanding of the derivative action in Asia and a re-examination of the regulation of the derivative action around the world.

This book examines reforms in company and takeover law, crucial to modern business and economics. Reform activity is underway in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and most other member States of the European Union. In addition, the EU is developing its own rules and reform plans. The European 13th directive was enacted in December 2003- this requires modifications of member State takeover law. The European Commission has outlined the company law action plan which will lead to important directives from 2004 to 2010. This book is the first to deal comprehensively with both the 13th directive and the EU company law action plan, providing commentary on the action plan, and critically assessing what the future may hold. The takeover law provisions in the 13th directive, including the 'break-through' rule and the controversial level playing field for takeover activities amongst European member states and between them and the United States are examined. The contributions also address a wide range of topical issues including corporate disclosure, board structure, the role of non-executive and supervisory directors, remuneration of directors, responsibility of the management and the board, personal liability of board members, auditors, and conflicts of interest. The company law action plan and the two reports of the High Level Group of Company Law Experts upon which the plan was based are reproduced in full in a useful annex.

The second edition of this important work provides an invaluable reference guide for legal practitioners advising on matters relating to company shareholders. Fully revised and updated, it addresses the major legal developments since the first edition, including key cases in relation to the expropriation of minority shareholders such as Charterhouse Capital Ltd, re Coroin, and Assenagon Asset Management SA v Irish Bank Resolution Corp Ltd. There is also discussion of cases relating to the commencement of derivative proceedings such as Kleanthous v Paphitis. Developments relating to creditors' and members' schemes are also covered, and the limitations of contractual control are considered throughout. New chapters have been added on nominee directors and offshore jurisdictions. The chapter on responding to derivative claims has been extensively updated to take account of recent cases which consider the statutory procedure for commencing derivative proceedings under the Companies Act 2006. The Law of Majority Shareholder Power continues to be the go-to work for company lawyers and majority shareholders.