Oxford Business Law Blog

In several common law systems, creditors of corporate debtors enjoy legal protections beyond what their contracts with those companies afford them in the form of vicinity-of-insolvency fiduciary...

Capital markets are a powerful instrument to allocate resources from investors to issuers—ie, firms and states. A well-functioning capital market is a key determinant of economic growth as well as of...

How, and when, did the law of American corporate fiduciary duties begin to develop differently? Kershaw shows that the Delaware variant of the business judgment rule emerged in the twentieth century...

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Commission’s (Commission’s) science and knowledge service published a report on common shareholding in Europe in September 2020 (the Report). The...

Ongoing attempts to infuse Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the practice of law are actively taking place by commercial vendors of LegalTech products and by legal scholars in academic research labs...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is typically assumed as a voluntary initiative rather than a legal mandate. Yet, over the past few decades, the world has witnessed the rise of explicit CSR...

Statement made by Prof. John C. Coffee, Jr. at the ECGI Policy Workshop on 'Directors’ Duties and Sustainable Corporate Governance' (11 November 2020). The European Commission retained Ernst &...

In our recent paper, we explore the potential impact of ESG-related information and of the increase in ESG-compliant investments on the prohibition on insider dealing and the obligation to publicly...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increasingly become a mainstream business activity, ranging from voluntarily engaging in environmental protection to increasing workforce diversity and...

In 1958, Nobel Laureates Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller controversially claimed that, under certain assumptions, the value of a firm is independent of its capital structure. Their article was a...

New technologies such as the blockchain and artificial intelligence could have profound effects on corporations. Research shows, for instance, that blockchains could be employed to clear and register...

The treatment of defaulting loans has become a major concern for supervisory authorities and bank regulators. During the global financial crisis (GFC), the growth of nonperforming loans (NPLs) was a...

Corporate groups are special in many respects, including the way group entities attract financing. They frequently provide guarantees and collateral or serve as co-obligors to secure performance by...

In today’s globalized world, regulation of global supply chains suffers from a well-known ‘governance gap’ that results from a fundamental mismatch between ‘a territorial logic of law and the...

In our recent research paper, we argue that venture capital-friendly corporate law should feature flexible fair value protections. Venture capital is critical to innovation and, thus, economic growth...

In an important development, RiverRock Securities Ltd v International Bank of St Petersburg (JSC) (decided on September 23, 2020), the England & Wales High Court held that avoidance claims on...

In recent weeks, the Oxford Business Law Blog has been featuring a series of blog posts covering the recently released ‘Study on directors’ duties and sustainable corporate governance’ prepared by...

Business history and theory reflect a tension between public and private conceptions of the corporation. This tension and conceptual ambiguity lay close to the surface of The Modern Corporation and...