Oxford Business Law Blog

The US-China ‘trade war’ has captured headlines for more than a year now. One of the primary justifications given by the US government for this onslaught—including a WTO case, tariffs, export...

Challenger banks do not only challenge traditional banks but also the rules aimed at them. The detail, how banks have to verify the identity of new customers in different jurisdictions, shows how...

The Spanish Ministry of Economy has recently released a new bill that, among other aspects, proposes an amendment of the Spanish Companies Act to allow listed companies to adopt loyalty shares. These...

What is the (opportunity) cost of private benefits of control? Using dollar cost of corporate giving to measure private benefit of control, we show in our study ‘Private Benefits and Corporate...

It has now been twenty years since the European Court of Justice delivered its landmark Centros­ decision, followed by a string of cases similarly supportive of corporate mobility. In theory, these...

Trust is an integral aspect of all human relationships. Trust facilitates social cooperation and coordination. Contractual relationships are no exception. Non-legal mechanisms such as reputation and...

It has been twenty years since the European Court of Justice issued its decision in Centros Ltd. v. Erhvervs - og Selskabsstyrelsen (Centros). Since that time, Centros has been widely understood as...

Art. XXI of the GATT establishes one of the exceptions to the rules of the multilateral trading system. Named a ‘security’ exception, this provision is most frequently invoked to justify trade...

Consumers’ financial choices are often quite complex. For instance, choosing a new credit card entails assessing various features of each card, such as introductory and ongoing interest rates, annual...

On December 9, 2002, UAL Corporation, which operated as United Airlines, filed for bankruptcy protection, leading to huge losses by UAL’s creditors. Those creditors included UAL’s pensioners when UAL...

The legal protection provided to creditors to enforce their contracts with debtors is central to the functioning of credit markets. These include the rights afforded to lenders in bankruptcy,...

Historically, India has always been a heavily cash-dependent economy. However, in the recent past, it is witnessing a steady growth in the volume and value of digital financial transactions,...

Climate change presents serious implications for development in developing countries. The United Nations Human Development Report in 2016 found that over 1.5 billion people in developing countries...

For the past several years, the US Congress has been considering various versions of a legislative reform that would amend the Bankruptcy Code to facilitate the prompt reorganization of systemically...

On 23 January 2019, Advocate General Szpunar delivered his opinion in Plessers, a case before the European Court of Justice that concerns the protection of employees in a Belgian insolvency...

The European Commission (EC) adopted a legislative proposal in December 2017 for a regulation (Investment Firm Regulation) and a directive (Investment Firm Directive) to amend the current EU...

The first major legal instrument dealing with cross-border insolvencies in the European Union (EU) has been the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR 2000). It was adopted in 2000 and entered into...

In ‘Choice Theory and the Economic Analysis of Contracts’ I offer an economist’s reaction to Hanoch Dagan and Michael Heller’s important book, ‘The Choice Theory of Contracts.’ In this post, I...

The UK’s reviews of the Big Four auditing firms have largely adopted an approach of more regulation and government oversight. This approach is not an unnatural response in the face of the evidence...