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This book focuses on the legitimacy of corporate power wielded by corporate groups, integrating legal doctrine, economic analysis, and theoretical approaches. It reassesses how corporate groups can maintain legitimacy whilst exercising corporate power.Corporate groups are a prominent commercial feature of many jurisdictions and present unique challenges. The book argues that when analysed through the lens of corporate social responsibility, a legitimacy deficiency emerges. This arises from a lack of historical debate, diluted control mechanisms, and inflated growth, utilising unique features of the corporate group. It explores how the magnified power of the corporate group presents acute challenges for corporate legitimacy. Data is utilised alongside current examples of corporate groups which identify structural architectural patterns. It explores new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and blockchain as ways of attaining legitimacy. It presents methods of attaining legitimacy for the continued wielding of power to be held within corporate groups.This book spans several research interests under the corporate law umbrella. It will be of interest to traditional black letter company lawyers. Additionally, it will be of interest to those who have an interest in business and those who are interested in the role of technology.

Recent financial crisis and the global financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought renewed interest to the regulation and practice of corporate insolvency and restructuring.Modernisation of the insolvency profession, and the regulation of its practitioners, is a contemporary concern and recent years have seen significant reforms of insolvency law. The success of such reforms can be enhanced through a clear understanding of difficulties faced by the insolvency profession in achieving successful restructuring and insolvency outcomes and through the determination of effective solutions to those difficulties. However, there is limited empirical data to inform the day-to-day practice of insolvency, nor the difficulties experienced by insolvency practitioners in pursing insolvency and restructuring solutions. This book addresses this absence of data and understanding, examining the role and practice of corporate insolvency practitioners and exploring the challenges that they encounter.Offering an empirical study together with a comparative analysis of the experiences of practitioners around the world, this book facilitates a greater understanding of corporate insolvency practice, confronting a misunderstanding of, and under-confidence in, corporate insolvency practitioners, making it key reading for academics, practitioners and regulators working in the area of corporate insolvency.

This book argues for an intensely humanist engagement with the company and presents a model of company regulation that is compatible with the protection, respect for and fulfilment of human rights.Dr Barrett provides a theoretical framing for corporate regulation in the context of human rights States. He argues that States which have ratified the fundamental human rights instruments should, on principle, exclude bodies corporate from the human rights ecosystem, except to the degree necessary to respect property rights of humans and human rights in business. He therefore develops a ‘neo-concession'account of the corporation as the basis for a model of corporate regulation to protect human rights. The book outlines and recommends the principal features of a company under a neo-concession model, and the role of regulators in furthering the State's human right obligations. It also delves into the potential issues of technological developments, including decentralised autonomous organisations, and the lessons policymakers can gain from First Nations'approaches to business.This is a thought-provoking volume that will appeal to scholars in the disciplines of human rights law and corporate governance, as well as policymakers and regulators interested in regulating business for greater societal good.

Agency theory is ubiquitous in company law. This book explores (a) the limits of such deployment, and (b) the logic of how to deploy it.The book makes five linked arguments in respect of the limits of agency theory in company law. First, it argues that agency theory has become so broad that it can be used to analyse most human relationships. Such breadth, though, comes at the expense of legal clarity: as agency relationships cover such a broad range of relationships, there are no normative legal conclusions that can be drawn merely from identifying such a relationship. Second, it argues that we need to differentiate more specific concepts with clearer legal implications, such as externalities, and the particular manifestation of moral hazard that appears in insurance dynamics. Third, it argues that considerable amounts of existing company law theory - which is ostensibly built from agency theory - is in fact based on a series of hidden value judgments at each stage of the analysis. Fourth, it argues that company law theory should use agency theory less to rebalance the discipline: agency theory has become hegemonic, which is dangerous for the discipline, obscures company law's role in establishing incentives, undermines accountability, and reduces company law's autonomy.The book then moves to the logic of agency theory and makes three arguments. First, it argues that we need to factor in the company, only apply agency theory to voluntary interactions, and foreground our value judgments when identifying agency relations to do it properly. Second, it argues that it is rational to incur agency costs when we perceive the benefits of doing so to outweigh the costs, meaning that agency costs can be facilitative and we should look to front-end them rather than universally minimise them. Third, it argues that this needs to be undertaken through mandatory laws.Exploring the external limits and internal logic of agency cost analysis, this book will be of interest to academics, students, and researchers of corporate and company law.

Current advancements in civil rights and environmental activism emphasize the crucial importance of making environmental information widely available to the public, regardless of whether it is in the hands of the government or of corporations, especially when the information is needed to understand and prevent risks for human health and the environment. In the wake of a resurgence of environmental and civil rights activism, conflicts flare between the right of the people to know and the right of private actors to keep certain information hidden, mostly for commercial reasons. This book offers a detailed comparative analysis of how environmental information is being accessed in different countries and jurisdictions, and how these issues are currently being handled by judges and governments. Focusing on the right of access to environmental information held and produced by private actors and the legal issues that emerge when other values and rights are compromised, this book offers an alternative framework to improve on current legal systems, suggesting a more nuanced and balanced approach that takes both set of interests duly into consideration. Providing an integrated approach to public environmental law and private commercial law, the book integrates the arguments from both sides to establish a common ground, defining shared principles and models that provide a solid basis for a robust new system. Reviewing access to private sector information at a truly international level, this book will be relevant to students, academics and practitioners working in these areas.

This book tracks the phenomenon of international corporate personhood (ICP) in international law and explores many legal issues raised in its wake. It sketches a theory of the ICP and encourages engagement with its amorphous legal nature through reimagination of international law beyond the State, in service to humanity.The book offers two primary contributions, one descriptive and one normative. The descriptive section of the book sketches a history of the emergence of the ICP and discusses existing analogical approaches to theorizing the corporation in international law. It then turns to an analysis of the primary judicial decisions and international legal instruments that animate internationally a concept that began in U.S. domestic law. The descriptive section concludes with a list of twenty-two judge-made and text-made rights and privileges presently available to the ICP that are not available to other international legal personalities; these are later categorized into ‘active'and ‘passive'rights. The normative section of the book begins the shift from what is to what ought to be by sketching a theory of the ICP that – unlike existing attempts to place the corporation in international legal theory – does not rely on analogical reasoning. Rather, it adopts the Jessupian emphasis on ‘human problems'and encourages pragmatic, solution-oriented legal analysis and interpretation, especially in arbitral tribunals and international courts where legal reasoning is frequently borrowed from domestic law and international treaty regimes. It suggests that ICPs should have ‘passive'or procedural rights that cater to problems that can be characterized as ‘universal'but that international law should avoid universalizing ‘active'or substantive rights which ICPs can shape through agency. The book concludes by identifying new trajectories in law relevant to the future and evolution of the ICP.This book will be most useful to students and practitioners of international law but provides riveting material for anyone interested in understanding the phenomenon of international corporate personhood or the international law surrounding corporations more generally.

This book draws together themes in business model developments in relation to decentralised business models (DBMs), sometimes referred to as the ‘sharing'economy, to systematically analyse the challenges to corporate and organisational law and governance.DBMs include business networks, the global supply chain, public–private partnerships, the platform economy and blockchain-based enterprises. The law of organisational forms and governance has been slow in responding to changes, and reliance has been placed on innovations in contract law to support the business model developments. The authors argue that the law of organisations and governance can respond to changes in the phenomenon of decentralised business models driven by transformative technology and new socio-economic dynamics. They argue that principles underlying the law of organisations and governance, such as corporate governance, are crucial to constituting, facilitating and enabling reciprocality, mutuality, governance and redress in relation to these business models, the wealth-creation of which subscribes to neither a firm nor market system, is neither hierarchical nor totally decentralised, and incorporates socio-economic elements that are often enmeshed with incentives and relations. Of interest to academics, policymakers and legal practitioners, this book offers proposals for new thinking in the law of organisation and governance to advance the possibilities of a new socio-economic future.

La presente obra pretende aportar un estudio comparado y actual de las principales perspectivas y propuestas simplificadoras del Derecho societario de nuestro tiempo, prestando especial atención al estado actual de la cuestión en el Derecho español de sociedades. Aborda la simplificación del momento constitutivo de la sociedad en los ámbitos español, europeo y americano y destaca, en esta línea, la presencia de modelos de documentación estandarizada, así como el importante papel de la tramitación telemática. En referencia a la corriente simplificadora del ordenamiento español, apuesta por el modelo de la sociedad exprés, consecuencia de la evolución que la simplificación societaria ha experimentado en nuestro país hasta nuestros días y que debe abarcar las diferentes formas particulares de las sociedades capitalistas, partiendo de lo aplicable a la SRL, pero presentando el inicio del camino al respecto también para la SA. La Unión Europea ha sido testigo de todo un desarrolló simplificador del que constituye buen ejemplo la Directiva (UE) 2019/1151 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, relativa a la utilización de herramientas y procesos digitales en el ámbito del Derecho de sociedades. Los EEUU mantienen su apuesta histórica por la flexibilización y la libertad contractual, mientras que Suramérica, encabezada por Colombia, se viene ubicando a la vanguardia de la modernización del Derecho societario. Esta obra atiende a la simplificación y flexibilización de la constitución de las sociedades capitalistas con la mirada puesta en la promoción del emprendimiento, presentando todo un abanico de propuestas susceptibles de aplicación en la vía de una verdadera modernización del Derecho de sociedades.Gonzalo Damián Montoya Alcocer es Graduado en Derecho y Máster en Abogacía y en Teología por la Universidad de Murcia. Graduado en Ciencia Política y de la Administración y Máster en Formación del Profesorado por la UNED. Doctor en Derecho por la UM, con la calificación de Sobresaliente “cum laude” por unanimidad. Ha sido becario de colaboración (MECD) y contratado de iniciación a la investigación en el Departamento de Derecho Privado de la UM, así como becario doctoral de la Fundación de Promoción de la Investigación José Luis de Oriol-Catalina de Urquijo. Actualmente, es abogado en ejercicio y profesor asociado de Filosofía del Derecho en el Departamento de Fundamentos del Orden Jurídico y Constitucional de la UM.

Virtually all enterprises are regulated. Regulation is crucial not only to economic success but also to protecting consumer, worker, environmental, and other interests. Yet it is often considered a tiresome interference with entrepreneurial activity. This negative vision is unhelpful in addressing business and other needs for productive forms of regulation. Taming the Corporation offers an alternative, positive, vision of regulation. It stresses the role of good regulation in allowing businesses to flourish, serve markets effectively, and respect broader interests. This perspective paves the way for more productive regulatory designs. It looks at the characteristics of good regulation and provides businesses, consumers, and citizens with the arguments that will enable them to push for regulatory controls that serve their needs. Understandings of regulation are served by looking at the potentially positive roles of control strategies ranging from'command laws'to'nudges'. This book not only discusses regulatory theory but also uses numerous case examples to illustrate real life challenges and address three key regulatory challenges in the modern world: regulating for sustainability, addressing global warming, and controlling digital platforms.

The book introduces the model of the corporate compliance officer under US, UK and German law and practice. It aims to analyze the compliance function within private sector companies in the three selected jurisdictions in order to present a model of the German Compliance Officer. There is little uniformity and standardization of the German compliance function outside the banking sector. It has been recognized that a generally applicable definition of the compliance function is as yet absent. There is a need for a generally applicable definition and a modern understanding of the role of the compliance officer. This is why this book is intended to bridge the gap in knowledge concerning the applicable legal standards required to ensure the effectiveness of this position. As such, it may be useful to examine the legal environment of the compliance function outside of the German framework and to explore the professional status and role of the corporate compliance officer in other countries, such as in the US and the UK.

GbR, OHG, KG, AG oder GmbH? Der Erfolg eines Unternehmens hängt von zahlreichen Faktoren ab. Es kommt nicht allein auf das angebotene Produkt an, sondern auch auf die Bedingungen, unter denen dieses hergestellt und am Markt platziert wird. Neben dem Umgang mit Arbeitnehmern, Lieferanten, Kunden, Konkurrenten und dem Fiskus, ist dabei eine Frage von entscheidender Bedeutung: In welcher Unternehmensform soll gehandelt werden? Bereits mit dieser Entscheidung werden die Weichen gestellt, die für einen dauerhaften Erfolg'überlebenswichtig'werden können. Aus der Wahl der Rechtsform folgen verschiedenste Konsequenzen: Steuerliche Behandlung des Unternehmens Persönliche Haftung der Beteiligten Verhältnis der Gesellschafter untereinander Der Ratgeber Gesellschaftsrecht vermittelt die Grundzüge des Gesellschaftsrechts, die sowohl für Unternehmensgründer als auch für Verantwortliche in bestehenden Unternehmen unverzichtbar sind.

Whether the corporate form is used to avoid liabilities or cover illegal acts, or whether abuse is practised to obtain certain advantages, the subject of this first-ever in-depth survey and analysis garners more attention every day – both in legal literature and in popular media. Taken together, the authoritative contributions in this book clearly and comprehensively reveal typical situations where abuse may take place and how company law and other areas of law have tackled these incidents and practices in a variety of key jurisdictions. Focusing on Europe but with global implications, the topics raised include the following: how group structures may be used by multinational enterprises to escape regulation and avoid taxation; whether the decision to incorporate a company in a particular jurisdiction may be abusive; companies set up for the purpose of money laundering; letterbox companies formed as a front to allow a company to benefit from one legal regime and avoid others; ex post transfers of seats such as cross-border mergers and conversions; when the use of phoenix companies may constitute an abuse of the corporate form; how corporate mobility is used to circumvent worker participation; and how online company formation and technological innovation may foster abuse. This book helps to explain how the line is drawn between abuse and (creative) use of the corporate form. Remedies covered include restricting the use of bearer shares, setting minimum capital requirements, piercing the corporate veil, ensuring transparency of beneficial ownership, using insolvency law to lodge claims against directors and shareholders and recover assets, and applying the general principle prohibiting abuse. There is no other book on the market focusing on abuse of companies and giving such a comprehensive analysis of the topic. Practitioners will get guidelines on how to avoid becoming involved in activities that may constitute abuse and how to address instances where abuse has occurred, and interested academics, legislators, and enforcement authorities in Europe and beyond will find this book's perspectives invaluable.

Vorteile - Ausgewählt von den Top-Autoren des Vahlen Verlags - Mit Sachregister und dem praktischen Daumenregister - Alle im Wirtschaftsleben relevanten Gesetze in einem Band Zum Werk Die Textausgabe enthält in einem Band alle im Wirtschaftsleben relevanten Rechtsvorschriften. Die Auswahl der Gesetze wurde von den Top-Autoren des Vahlen Verlags getroffen. Allgemeines Zivilrecht - Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (Auszug: Allgemeiner Teil, Recht der Schuldverhältnisse, Sachenrecht) - Einführungsgesetz zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch - Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz - Produkthaftungsgesetz Handelsrecht - Handelsgesetzbuch (ohne Seehandelsrecht) - UN-Kaufrecht (CISG) Wettbewerbsrecht - Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (UWG) - Preisangabenverordnung Gesellschaftsrecht - Aktiengesetz - GmbH-Gesetz - Genossenschaftsgesetz - Partnerschaftsgesellschaftsgesetz - Umwandlungsgesetz Insolvenzrecht - Insolvenzordnung Kapitalmarktrecht - Kreditwesengesetz - Wertpapierhandelsgesetz Zur Neuauflage Die Neuauflage enthält insbesondere die Änderungen durch die Aktienrechtsnovelle 2016 und durch das Transparenzrichtlinie-Umsetzungsgesetz. Zielgruppe Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Jura im Nebenfach.

La presente monografía aborda las principales cuestiones que suscita y concita la aplicación de un programa de compliance o programa de prevención de riesgos penales y delitos en las empresas u organizaciones que pueden incidir en responsabilidad penal y para ello es fundamental una Cultura de Cumplimiento Normativo, así como la instauración de un Código Ético o Código de Conducta que tenga un asentamiento ejemplar y eficaz más que puramente simbólico. La finalidad de todo Compliance es la exoneración o atenuación de los delitos en que pudiera incurrir la organización empresarial o persona jurídica responsable en sentido extenso. También se aborda la posible responsabilidad del Compliance Officer, así como la falta de supervisión, vigilancia y control del órgano de cumplimiento externo o interno en la empresa, y el decisivo papel para un funcionamiento correcto del Compliance del Canal de Denuncias o Whistleblowing y las características y requisitos que debe tener el mismo. La monografía es un riguroso estudio en el ámbito de la doctrina especializada sobre Compliance y un referente necesario para obtener una visión global de la todas las cuestiones relevantes sobre el Compliance y la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas desde su introducción el el año 2010 y con la amplia reforma llevada a cabo en el año 2015.

Gegenstand dieser Untersuchung ist der rechtliche Rahmen für die Ausgliederung wirtschaftlicher Geschäftsbetriebe gemeinnütziger Körperschaften. Die Zulässigkeit des Outsourcing wird derzeit nach herrschender Meinung damit begründet, dass ein Vermögenstausch vorgenommen wird. Das Vermögen des wirtschaftlichen Geschäftsbetriebs wird gegen Gesellschaftsanteile an einer Gesellschaft getauscht, in die der wirtschaftliche Geschäftsbetrieb eingebracht wurde. Im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung wird nachgewiesen, dass diese Begründung nicht ausreichend ist. Gemeinnützige Körperschaften müssen sich Einwirkungsmöglichkeiten vorbehalten, um die Restriktionen des Gemeinnützigkeitsrechts zu erfüllen.