Cross-Border Takeover Regulation : A Transatlantic Perspective

The law of takeovers is a specific field of securities law. A very recent branch of the law, it is primarily designed to protect minority shareholders from takeover bids for the securities they hold of a specific company. Increasingly, takeovers are characterized by transnational elements: in a globalized economy, the bidder, the target, and the investors may all have a different quot;nationalityquot;. National financial regulators are in a conundrum then: when should they apply their laws to the takeover, and when should they defer to other regulators, in order for international regulatory conflict not to arise?