Oxford Business Law Blog

Once nearly consigned to the junk heap of economic history, the state-owned enterprise (‘SOE’) has staged a remarkable comeback in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Much (though not all...

Dual class capital structures have spread exponentially in recent years across much of the corporate world, as has previously been reported on this blog. Dual class listed companies today account for...

The criticisms made of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are well known. SOEs are said to be generally inefficient as they rely on state patronage and do not compete fairly. Such inefficiency can also...

How has cross-border corporate mobility in the European Union (‘EU’) and European Economic Area (‘EEA’) been doing over the last twenty years? What degree of integration exists via cross-border...

Shareholder cooperation as a tool for active corporate ownership, and a means by which to effectively voice concerns about corporate governance and performance, is on the rise. While wolf packs...

The United States pursues more successful corporate criminal enforcement actions against large multi-national firms than any other country, collecting enormous penalties and occupying center stage in...

Wrongdoing is ubiquitous. Media outlets relentlessly report a seemingly ceaseless stream of deleterious human behaviour, from consumer fraud and financial misrepresentation to corporate and political...

Artificial intelligence has had a profound impact on finance. In the span of a few decades, it has made finance faster, more accessible, more profitable, and more efficient in many ways. Despite all...

The ‘traditional’ IPO model has received a lot of criticism recently in the media and from venture capital investors for perceived ‘mispricings’ that result in a pop in the opening trade. Recently,...

We are currently experiencing a technology-driven transformation in how companies organize themselves. The proliferation of networked digital technologies is forcing companies to reconsider every...

The typical structure of corporations with multiple classes of stock consists of multiple classes of preferred stock and one or more types of common stock. These structures are most commonly used in...

Auditors play a major role in corporate governance and capital markets. Ex ante, auditors facilitate firms’ access to finance by creating trust from public investors. Ex post, auditors can prevent...

The UK’s adoption of a stewardship code sparked a global shareholder stewardship movement. Singapore, as a corporate governance leader in Asia, naturally followed suit by introducing its stewardship...

In response to the sharp increase in campaigns by activist hedge funds in France and Europe generally, a French commission has conducted an extensive investigation and issued a carefully researched,...

Back in August, the Business Roundtable, which comprises the chief executive officers of America’s largest companies—with combined annual revenues of $7 trillion—updated its long-standing statement...

In my paper ‘The Road Towards Good Bankruptcy Governance: A Comparative Law and Economics Perspective’ (published in the conference proceedings booklet ‘Party-Autonomy and Third Party Protection in...

If you ask a hundred lawyers whether a software system or a robot can buy a house or file a lawsuit, all of them would be likely to answer ‘no.’ But because of the extreme flexibility of limited...

Perhaps the most attractive aspect of the UK system is the ability of the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers (the Panel) to regulate the takeover landscape without interference from other public bodies...

Venture capital funds are widely recognised as performing a crucial intermediation role in the start-up sector, as they are capable of pooling capital from various investors, both individual and...