Search results for "Corporate law"
showing 10 items of 12 documents
The World Bank’s Early Reflections on Development: A Development Institution or a Bank?
2009
Until the late 1960s, the World Bank presented itself as an institution devoted to making sound and directly productive project loans. Yet, during its very early years, some discussions developed inside the Bank regarding the possibility of issuing different types of loans, namely (i) loans aimed at tackling social issues ("social loans"), and (ii) loans aimed at providing foreigncurrency to address disequilibria in the balance of payments ("impact loans"). This paper brings together historical analysis and theories of organization development to study the housing issue as a case in point. The analysis reveals that the Bank was unwilling to lend for housing programs not because these were n…
Political Yardstick Competition and Corporate Governance in the European Union
2006
http://www.dur.ac.uk/john.ashworth/EPCS/Papers_and_Authors.php; The question whether regulatory competition in the area of company law could take place in the European Union (EU) in a way similar to the form it takes in the United States (the Delaware phenomenon) is topical because of some recent judgments of the European Court of Justice (Centros) and documents and projects produced by the European Commission. That question is typically discussed, however, as if voters did not count and as if competition among governments was exclusively based on the mobility of firms across jurisdictions. But intergovernmental competition can also take the form of yardstick, or relative performance, compe…
Corporate governance and firm performance: A comparative analysis of auditing problems
2006
The recent financial crises have created a new debate about comparison and convergence of different systems of corporate governance. In particular, they have underlined poor efficiency of rule structures to achieve a good relationship between different stakeholder’s rights. In line with many studies of corporate governance that emphasize the manager-stakeholders relationship as explained by agency theory, in this paper, I analyse the role of auditing as an incentive device to reduce contractual or transaction costs related to asymmetric information.Considering as a benchmark the recent US Sarbanes Oxley Act of July 2002. I describe a set of auditing principles by comparing common and civil …
Female Institutional Directors on Boards and Firm Value
2016
The aim of this research is to examine what impact female institutional directors on boards have on corporate performance. Previous research shows that institutional female directors cannot be considered as a homogeneous group since they represent investors who may or may not maintain business relations with the companies on whose corporate boards they sit. Thus, it is not only the effect of female institutional directors as a whole on firm value that has been analysed, but also the impact of pressure-resistant female directors, who represent institutional investors (investment, pension and mutual funds) that only invest in the company, and do not maintain a business relation with the firm.…
Beyond the audit expectations gap
1992
In seeking to encourage a broader, European dimension to research on auditing and audit expectations, this paper examines the recent history of auditing and its regulation in Spain within the context of international developments in the accounting profession. The more expansive role being assigned to the audit function in Spain following the implementation of the Fourth and Eighth European Company Law Directives is generally viewed by Spanish writers as a progressive step, with largely positive effects. Such views stand in some contrast to the history of auditing in Britain, where the prevalence of an ‘audit expectations gap’ suggests a rather more problematic state of affairs. In exploring…
Fitness of Members of Supervisory Board
2015
This chapter deals with the fitness of members of supervisory boards. Since 2009, German insurance regulatory law has provided internal qualification standards for the supervisory board members of insurance companies. In accordance with Paragraph 7a, sec. 4, clause 1 of the VAG [German Insurance Supervision Act], the members of supervisory boards must be able to fulfill their tasks and supervisory functions in accordance with their level of expertise. This new requirement comports with the previous standards of German corporate law, established by the BGH [German Federal Court of Justice] in its “Hertie”-ruling. As such, this ruling will also serve as a basis to interpret the expertise requ…
Make It or Break It: The Break-Through Rule as a Break-Through for the European Takeover Directive?
2003
The break-through concept is the most recent idea to break the deadlock with respect to EU takeover legislation. As devised by the High-Level Group of Company Law Experts, chaired by the Dutch Jaap Winter, the break-through concept would do away with two of the most important types of impediments to takeovers within EU member states. The first part of the paper explores the break-through concept in some detail, particularly with respect to its premises, its two guiding principles - exclusive shareholder decisionmaking and proportionality, - and the justifications given by the Group for the proposed interventionist rules. The second part of the paper is dedicated to an analysis of the econom…
A Synthetic View of Different Concepts of Creditor Protection - Or a High-Level Framework for Corporate Creditor Protection
2006
Protection of corporate creditors has become an important topic within the European Union. At EU level, discussion has been sparked by widespread dissatisfaction with some very rigid and cumbersome provisions, and even with the whole concept of the Second Company Law Directive. At EU Member State level, three landmark decisions by the European Court of Justice — Centros, Uberseering, and Inspire Art — opened the way for an all-out competition between the different company forms provided for by national company laws. At both levels, albeit for different reasons, British company law — and in particular the absence of any legal capital in the private limited company — acts as the main driving …
The Role of Fraudulent Transfer Rules in Corporate Insolvency
2008
"The article is based on a lecture given by the author in Paris on the 12. October 2007 in the context of a Symposium devoted to corporate insolvency law. It deals with the role of fraudulent transfer rules in company law. The research is carried out on the field of comparative and European law. It therefore starts from a stipulative definition of [UTF-8?]“fraudulent transfer [UTF-8?]rules†which excludes preferences (even if they belong to the matter, in some legal systems) but includes the regulations aimed at subordinating [UTF-8?]shareholders’ loans. The paper demonstrates that the different [UTF-8?]“fraudulent transfer [UTF-8?]rules†adopted by principal EU Member States conver…
The Political Economy of the World Bank. The Early Years
2009
This book covers the early years of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), commonly known as the World Bank when it first confronted the issue of development as a fundamental part of its mission. The book is mainly concerned with how the Bank interpreted its mission and, more specifically, how its mission was born: what events shaped it, what cultural and ideological background influenced it and what was the historical context in which it arose. So this book is a contribution to the study of the prehistory of development, understood in its social and economic context. In this respect, the study of the early years of the World Bank offers excellent context for obser…