Oxford Business Law Blog

One of the fundamental issues in modern corporate finance is the problem of separation of firm ownership from control. The gap between management and shareholders is potentially wide, and the danger...

The advent of the ‘shareholder rights’ plan’, more popularly known as the ‘poison pill’, fundamentally altered the trajectory of American corporate governance. Intended to defend vulnerable boards...

A central issue in corporate governance literature is the extent to which ‘good’ governance practices are universal (one size mostly fits all) or instead depend on country and firm characteristics,...

With the UK’s planned exit from the European Union on March 29, 2019 looming and the likelihood of an exit without a withdrawal agreement (a so-called 'No Deal' Brexit) increasingly probable, merging...

In the United States, a significant majority of business entities incorporate in Delaware. That state’s law, therefore, applies in a great deal of litigation attacking actions taken by corporate...

Takeover regimes in Europe have been under persistent scrutiny by the public, politicians, and market participants. Sometimes, that is just the nature of the game: Takeovers create winners and losers...

On 25 April the Commission published its proposal for a directive amending Directive 2017/1132 as regards cross-border conversions, mergers and divisions (Proposal). One of the aspects of the...

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...

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...

When are banks fiduciaries of their customers and clients? This question is of more than theoretical interest given the organizational structure of modern financial institutions and the broad-ranging...

The recent AT&T and Amex decisions showcase the pitfalls of considering antitrust cases solely on the basis of economic analysis and may have the effect of immunizing tech giants from serious...

In February 2017, a water utility FTSE 100 company, Severn Trent, successfully completed the takeover of its supplier Dee Valley Water, for £84m. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting at which the...

Scholars, lawyers, judges, and policy-makers frequently need to compare corporate laws, both internationally and domestically. To make those comparisons, researchers need a method. Those who simply...

The European Commission’s merger-review power has been a subject of controversy among lawmakers and commentators for more than two decades. One reason for this is that the Commission has sometimes...

The Mandatory Bid Rule (MBR) forms an important part of the EU Directive (2004/25) on Takeover Bids. The MBR is generally seen as a benign protection of investors in listed companies. The Directive...

Since the early 1970s, credit rating agencies have generally employed an “issuer pays” model under which they charge debt issuers for the cost of their services. As discussed in a recent paper, under...

Disrupting the market for legal services is old news. Lawyers serving a variety of markets are approaching-if not undergoing already-periods of significant disruption, as technological and...

A company’s authorised share capital is the total amount of capital that the company is allowed to issue or allot. In India, the Companies Act, 2013 (the “Act”) provides a statutory definition of...

Activist hedge funds increasingly seek and secure board representation in public companies. Representation on target boards may signal a longer-term commitment to target companies that can mitigate...