It is one of the well-known cornerstones of corporate governance that (minority) share-holders are subject to a risk of being expropriated by the controller of the firm, i.e. either entrenched management under a dispersed ownership structure or a controlling share-holder under concentrated...

The roots of law & economics lie in late 19th century continental Europe. However, this early movement did not persist, having been cut off in the 1930s. After World War II, modern law & economics was (re-)invented in the United States and subsequently grew into a major field of research at U.S....

The paper surveys the corporate opportunities doctrine in four jurisdictions: the US, the UK, Germany, and France. Our analysis enables us to trace the development of the doctrine, exposing the way in which certain models of dealing with a particular issue have arisen, and how these models have...

Shareholder litigation has been a prominent topic in the comparative corporate governance literature for decades. However, scholars trained in a particular jurisdiction often tend to look for types of lawsuits familiar from their home turf. In particular, the English-language literature has...

This chapter sketches the history of EU Company Law, from its beginnings in the 1960s until today. Throughout all periods, EU company law harmonization was largely a top-down, technocratic project that was considered imperative to realize the common market. In other words, it was promoted mainly...

Comparative corporate governance has captured the interest of economists and legal scholars during the past two decades. In view of intensified economic globalization, it has become apparent that the public corporation, one of the keystones of the modern market economy, has produced very...

In this symposium article, we attempt to trace the UK's influence on EC/EU company law harmonization by focusing on a few key areas. Since the establishment of the European Economic Community in the 1960s, company law harmonization has possibly been the area of private law most affected by the...

Auditors play a major role in corporate governance and capital markets. Ex ante, auditors facilitate firms' access to finance by fostering trust among public investors. Ex post, auditors can prevent misbehavior and financial fraud by corporate insiders. In order to fulfill these goals, however,...