scholarly journals A macro-level investigation of transatlantic controlling shareholder's fiduciary duty

Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Leon Anidjar
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Fiduciary Duty ◽  
Business History ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Minority Shareholders ◽  
Controlling Shareholders ◽  
Corporate Groups ◽  
The World

Abstract Legal systems around the world apply various strategies to mitigate agency costs between controlling and minority shareholders. A systematic review of the transnational law on the loyalty and care obligations of controlling shareholders reveals various doctrinal choices. This study aims to uncover the evolution of these choices by employing a law-in-context methodology. Accordingly, it seeks to explain the differences in governance selections by exploring the cultural, historical and socio-economic backgrounds of the particular legal systems in which organisations and decisions are embodied. I conduct a macro-level inquiry which focuses on the cultural environment and business history development to understand different doctrinal designs. In particular, I argue that those dissimilarities are a result of unique cultural-non-formal norms of corporate governance regarding the protection afforded to shareholders’ interests and they correspond to the historical development of the law of corporate groups across nations. As the macro-level investigation indicates, any initiative to globally converge corporate law and governance should be carried out with caution because it may distort the delicate normative equilibrium represented in a given jurisdiction.

Greening the Machine Question: Towards an Ecological Framework for Assessing Robot Rights

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua C. Gellers
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Ecological Framework ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
Robot Rights ◽  
The One ◽  
And Behavior

Could robots have rights? On the one hand, robots are becoming increasingly human-like in appearance and behavior. On the other hand, legal systems around the world are increasingly recognizing the rights of nonhuman entities. Observing these macro-level trends, in this paper I present an ecological framework for evaluating the conditions under which some robots might be considered eligible for certain rights. I argue that a critical, materialist, and broadly ecological interpretation of the environment, along with decisions by jurists establishing or upholding the rights of nature, support extension of rights to nonhuman entities like robots.

scholarly journals ”The good, the bad, and the ugly” private benefits of control and their regulatory implications

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio M. Pacces
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Corporate Control ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Minority Shareholders ◽  
Private Benefits ◽  
Controlling Shareholders ◽  
Private Benefits Of Control ◽  
The Law

This paper attempts to shed a new light on the economics and the law of corporate governance. It so does by taking stock of the weaknesses of the standard account of how law ‘matters’ for separation of ownership and control. This account fails to explain comparative corporate governance. Both the ownership structure and the functioning of the market for corporate control do not seem to depend entirely on the strength with which non-controlling shareholders are protected by corporate law. Without claiming that legal protection of minority shareholders does not matter in corporate governance, this paper shows that protection and exchange of corporate control is at least as important and so are the legal institutions that support them. This result is derived by introducing a third category of private benefits of control (idiosyncratic PBC), which supplements the more traditional specifications as inefficient consumption of control perquisites (distortionary PBC) or outright expropriation of shareholder value (diversionary PBC).The implications for corporate law are broader than those of the ‘law matters’ framework. Even though legal institutions effectively constrain expropriation of non-controlling shareholders, they may still make corporate governance inefficient when they fail to provide entitlements to uncontested control in dependently of how much ownership is retained by corporate controllers. Likewise, regulation may undermine the takeover process when it restricts side payments that ultimately support efficient bargaining upon the value of corporate control

‘Turning Human Beings into Lawyers’

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-104
Author(s):  
Insa Koch
Keyword(s):  
Financial Regulation ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Legal Anthropology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Experts

Does anthropology matter to law? At first sight, this question might seem redundant: of course, anthropology matters to law, and it does so a great deal. Anthropologists have made important contributions to legal debates. Legal anthropology is a thriving sub-discipline, encompassing an ever-increasing range of topics, from long-standing concerns with customary law and legal culture to areas that have historically been left to lawyers, including corporate law and financial regulation. Anthropology’s relevance to law is also reflected in the world of legal practice. Some anthropologists act as cultural experts in, while others have challenged the workings of, particular legal regimes, including with respect to immigration law and social welfare.

The True Believers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Risman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gendered Expectations

This is the first data chapter. In this chapter, respondents who are described as true believers in the gender structure, and essentialist gender differences are introduced and their interviews analyzed. They are true believers because, at the macro level, they believe in a gender ideology where women and men should be different and accept rules and requirements that enforce gender differentiation and even sex segregation in social life. In addition, at the interactional level, these Millennials report having been shaped by their parent’s traditional expectations and they similarly feel justified to impose gendered expectations on those in their own social networks. At the individual level, they have internalized masculinity or femininity, and embody it in how they present themselves to the world. They try hard to “do gender” traditionally.

The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2016

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Reading Materials ◽  
The World ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Day By Day

The contributions, by eminent scholars, included in The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2016 discuss the discipline of comparative law in India and is of immense importance for legal scholarship around the globe. Unlike the West, that has covered almost all aspects of law from private to public law matters of national, transnational, and international relevance, not much work has been done in the discipline of Comparative law in India. In view of the countries and people of the world coming closer day by day, the need for the comparative study of law is becoming a sine qua non for participation in almost all transactions among people living across the globe. The attempt made with this volume will not only meet the much-awaited need of having reading materials on comparative law, but will also create a forum for legal scholars around the world to express their views on different aspects of law in comparative perspective. The issues covered her range from comparative legal methods to comparison in different aspects of law in different countries, as well as transnational and international bodies such as European Union and the various bodies of the United Nations. The issues covered include corporate law, constitutional law, human rights, environmental law, globalization, democracy, privatization, and several other contemporary legal issues.

Fiduciary Law, Good Faith, and Publicness

2019 ◽  
pp. 762-779
Author(s):  
Hillary A. Sale
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Fiduciary Duty ◽  
Red Flags ◽  
Corporate Development ◽  
Duty Of Loyalty ◽  
Trust Law

This chapter uses corporate law as a case study to evaluate the content of the fiduciary duty of good faith. Tracing its development from Van Gorkom through to the present, the chapter shows how good faith, though part of the duty of loyalty, has become a gap filler, policing the space between generally exculpated breaches of care and the more obvious breaches of loyalty. This chapter also surveys good faith case law to show the most common “red flags” for which corporate officers and directors should be monitoring. An analysis of two of the most recent good faith cases—City of Birmingham and In re Wells Fargo—show how the theory of publicness can be used to predict future good faith developments. Finally, the chapter ends by showing that the duty of good faith’s expansion into trust law parallels its corporate development by emphasizing its gap-filler function.

Fiduciary Principles in Corporate Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-78
Author(s):  
Julian Velasco
Keyword(s):  
Voting Rights ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Fiduciary Duty ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Profit Motive ◽  
Fiduciary Duties ◽  
Common Misconception ◽  
Strict Enforcement ◽  
Default Rules ◽  
Moral Requirements

This chapter examines fiduciary duty in corporate law. Fiduciary duty is pervasive as well as all encompassing in corporate law. One common misconception about fiduciary duty in corporate law is that it is merely aspirational. Fiduciary duties are not simply moral requirements, they are legal ones. They are not merely suggestions, they represent the demands of the law. Although corporate law has often compromised rather than insisting upon strict enforcement of fiduciary law principles, these compromises are due to practical considerations that are entirely consistent with the goals of fiduciary law. In corporate law, general fiduciary law principles are balanced with practical considerations concerning the profit motive in order to achieve the best overall result for the shareholders. Understanding this tension between ambition and practicality is key to understanding fiduciary duty in corporate law. This chapter first considers the triggers for fiduciary duty in corporate law before discussing the role that the duty of loyalty plays in corporate law. It then explores the duty of care in corporate law, along with other fiduciary duties such as good faith, takeover situations and contests for control, shareholder voting rights, and the duty to monitor and the duty to disclose. The chapter proceeds by analyzing mandatory and default rules regarding the extent to which fiduciary duties can be waived in corporate law and concludes with an overview of remedies for breach of fiduciary duty.

scholarly journals Belgium's historic beer diversity: should we raise a pint to institutions?

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eline Poelmans ◽  
Jason E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Regimes

AbstractDespite its relatively small size, Belgium has historically been considered to have the most diverse array of beer varieties in the world. We explore whether Belgium's institutional history has contributed to its beer diversity. The Belgian area has experienced a heterogeneous and variable array of institutional regimes over the last millennia. In many cases institutional borders crossed through the Belgian area. We trace the historical development of many of Belgium's well-known beer varieties to specific institutional causes. We also show that the geographic production of important varieties, such as Old Brown, Red Brown, Trappist, Lambic, Saison, and Gruitbeer, continues to be influenced by Belgium's institutional past.

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