Oxford Business Law Blog

Blockchain technology could reshape the economic institutions of capitalism, to borrow the title of a celebrated book by Oliver Williamson. In a recent paper, I deal with contractual agreements that...

Compliance is a stunningly hot topic, with companies spending significant resources on it, and probably literally, dozens of conferences on the subject each week.[1] One curious feature of the...

With the adoption of the Action Plan ‘Financing Sustainable Growth’, the European Commission is taking a range of steps towards encouraging listed companies to conduct their business in a more...

The purpose of our paper ‘Shareholders’ Rights in Agency Conflicts: Selected Issues in the Transatlantic Debate’ (2018) 42 Delaware Journal of Corporate Law 569 is to provide the reader with a...

Government regulation on disclosure differs considerably across countries. This gives rise to some interesting research questions. One line of research is investigating if certain types of disclosure...

Executive and non-executive directors with access to private and price-sensitive information have, as insiders, an advantage over other investors when trading in the shares of their firm. Even if...

A bill (SB-826, the ‘Bill’) that would impose a quota for women on boards of public companies was recently approved by California’s State Senate and Assembly. Once signed by the governor, the law...

In July 2018, the European Parliament passed a resolution recommending to the Commission the creation of an optional EU-wide legal status for social enterprises. The Commission now has one year to...

How do we measure shareholder protection? For more than ten years, the Centre of Business Research (CBR) at the University of Cambridge has developed datasets on shareholder, creditor and worker...

Corporate law is theoretically rich but historically poor. There is a ‘pre-history’ of corporate law that is prior to the discipline’s historical knowledge, horizon and imagination; a pre-history of...

In the 1970s and 80s, as major financial institutions grew and diversified their operations, courts and scholars recognized that fiduciary law posed profound challenges for the organizational...

As part of a research project on ‘Shareholders’ Duties’, such as inter alia the duties to disclose (e.g. major holdings, engagement policy etc.), and the duty not to abuse rights, this post aims to...

Voting at annual general shareholder meetings (AGMs) has been shown to be valuable. This makes perfect sense as voting gives shareholders a say on important corporate decisions, such as the...

The European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) featured a Focus Panel on ‘Common Ownership: Antitrust Meets Corporate Governance’ at their Annual Members’ Meeting in Berlin, in May 2018. The...

Introduction The Financial Reporting Council published its new UK Corporate Governance Code on 16 July 2018, following on from a long Green Paper/White Paper and FRC consultation process. A measure...

Firms are investing significant resources towards sustainable goals that do not necessarily seem to be just about maximizing profits. Is this a good thing? It depends on what their investors want. If...

There has been an explosion of articles in the popular press about the dangers of artificial intelligence (‘AI’). Some fear that machines with human-like intelligence could someday develop goals at...

Lately, there has been no shortage of scandals involving fraudulent, predatory, and otherwise ethically unacceptable behavior on the part of large financial institutions. Much of this behavior was...

Issuers, investors and regulators are paying increasing attention to corporate sustainability. Commentators have proffered a variety of explanations for this attention ranging from the argument that...

We are delighted to share the news about the publication of our new book, Behavioral Law and Economics (OUP 2018). This book aims to serve as a gateway into the world of behavioral analysis. It...

2019 Global Corporate Governance Colloquium Center for Financial Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany 7 - 8 June 2019 Deadline for submissions: 14 September 2018 (at midnight CET) The...