Business firms are ubiquitous in modern society, but an appreciation of how they are formed and for what purposes requires an understanding of their legal foundations. This book provides a scholarly and yet accessible introduction to the legal framework of modern business enterprises. It explains how the legal ideas allow for the construction and recognition of business firms as persons having rights and responsibilities. It also shows how law sets the boundariesof firms. Specific applications include contributions to debates about executive compensation and political free-speech rights of corporations. Anyone who wishes to have a deeper understanding of thenature of business firms and their role in modern society will benefit from reading this book.

This book proposes an approach to the patent-competition interface for developing countries. It puts forward a theoretical framework after canvassing relevant policy considerations and examines the many reasons why patent protection is not essential for generating innovation incentives in developing countries. These include the tendency of the patent system to overcompensate innovators, the availability of other appropriation mechanisms for innovators to monetize their innovations, and the lack of appropriate technological capacity in many developing countries to take advantage of the incentives generated by the patent system. It also argues that developing countries with a small population need not pay heed to the impact of their patent system on the incentives of foreign innovators. It then proposes a classification of developing countries into production countries, technology adaptation countries, and proto-innovation countries and argues that dynamic efficiency considerations take on different meanings for developing countries depending on their technological capacities. For the vast majority of developing countries bereft of meaningful innovation capacity, foreign technology transfer is the main vehicle for technological progress. The chief dynamic policy consideration for these countries is hence incentives for technology transfer instead of innovation incentives. There are three main means of voluntary technology transfer: importation of technological goods, foreign direct investment, and technology licensing. Competition law regulation of patent exploitation practices interacts with these three means of technology transfer in different ways and an appropriate approach to the patent-competition interface for these countries needs to take these into account. Distilling all these considerations, the book proposes a development stage-specific approach to the patent-competition interface for developing countries. The approach is then applied to a number of patent exploitation practices, including unilateral refusal to deal, patent tying, excessive pricing for pharmaceuticals, reverse payment settlements, and restrictive licensing practices.

This is the long-awaited second edition of this highly regarded comparative overview of corporate law. This edition has been comprehensively updated to reflect profound changes in corporate law. It now includes consideration of additional matters such as the highly topical issue of enforcement in corporate law, and explores the continued convergence of corporate law across jurisdictions. The authors start from the premise that corporate (or company) law across jurisdictions addresses the same three basic agency problems: (1) the opportunism of managers vis-à-vis shareholders; (2) the opportunism of controlling shareholders vis-à-vis minority shareholders; and (3) the opportunism of shareholders as a class vis-à-vis other corporate constituencies, such as corporate creditors and employees. Every jurisdiction must address these problems in a variety of contexts, framed by the corporation's internal dynamics and its interactions with the product, labor, capital, and takeover markets. The authors' central claim, however, is that corporate (or company) forms are fundamentally similar and that, to a surprising degree, jurisdictions pick from among the same handful of legal strategies to address the three basic agency issues. This book explains in detail how (and why) the principal European jurisdictions, Japan, and the United States sometimes select identical legal strategies to address a given corporate law problem, and sometimes make divergent choices. After an introductory discussion of agency issues and legal strategies, the book addresses the basic governance structure of the corporation, including the powers of the board of directors and the shareholders meeting. It proceeds to creditor protection measures, related-party transactions, and fundamental corporate actions such as mergers and charter amendments. Finally, it concludes with an examination of friendly acquisitions, hostile takeovers, and the regulation of the capital markets.

In an increasingly universalizing world, operating business in the form of companies is apparently becoming an indispensable aspect of modern commercial life. The major reason that led to the corporate form as the principal method of organization of commercial activity, among other things, is its advantage of limited liability. Limited liability, in its classical sense, implies the insulation of individual shareholders composing the company from the liability of company debts. Yet, the traditional corporate legal theory has confined the advantage of limited liability within the purview of multimember corporations, making it inaccessible to solo investors. However, quite recently, the historical relic of corporate theory that views corporations as a legally personified body of numerous subscribes of shares has undergone a sharp evolution, as have many other business practices and their legal bases. The purpose of this study is to look into notable literature on major corporate theories and analyze whether it would be applicable to single member companies (SMC). It also seeks to compare major legal frameworks governing SMC’s in comparative jurisdictions to show the legal and theoretical implications of introducing SMC’s into the Ethiopian corporate legal system.

Outlining the different types of financial crime and their impact, this book is a user-friendly, up-to-date guide to the regulatory processes, systems and legislation which exist in the UK. Each chapter has a similar structure and covers individual financial crimes including money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, insider dealing, market abuse, bribery and corruption and finally tax avoidance and evasion. Offences are summarized and their extent is evaluated using national and international documents. Detailed assessments of financial institutions and regulatory bodies are made and the achievements of these institutions are analysed. Sentencing and policy options for different financial crimes are included and suggestions are made as to how criminal proceeds might be recovered. This second edition has been fully updated and includes a section on cybercrime and a new chapter on tax evasion. Case summaries have also been included in those chapters where a criminal justice route is used by the prosecuting authorities.

This book provides a clear overview of the legal rules relating to directors’ disqualification in Australia, Germany, South Africa, the UK and the US, and to highlight the differences in the disqualification regimes of these jurisdictions. The book seeks to determine whether disqualification on application should be developed further as a corporate law and corporate governance tool to ensure that individuals who have a proven record of posing a particular risk to the business community, shareholders and creditors, are indeed disqualified from being directors. The book is unique as it provides a single source where the disqualification regimes of all these jurisdictions are explored and compared. The book will appeal to scholars of corporate law, regulators and policy-makers. The book will also be of particular interest to senior managers and directors to determine precisely what the laws regarding disqualification of company directors are, and what type of behaviour might expose them to potential disqualification.