Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

In Whose Interests Should A Company Be Run? Fiduciary Duties Of Directors During Corporate Failure In India: Looking To The West For Answers, Gautam Sundaresh

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Comment looks at the debate as it has played out in the legal jurisprudence of the U.S. and the U.K. The analysis of each considers the three financial stages of a corporation’s existence that are specifically addressed in the debate today, i.e.: (i) solvency; (ii) insolvency; and (iii) the zone of insolvency. After setting out the current position, this Comment specifically addresses the various shortcomings and criticisms of the models adopted by each jurisdiction and offers observations on the status quo and the implementation of these models. On this basis, this Comment goes on to propose a model to …

The Suitability Of South Africa's Business Rescue Procedure In The Reorganization Of Small-To-Medium-Sized Enterprises: Lessons From Chapter 11 Of The United States Bankruptcy Code., Mikovhe Maphiri

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

South African small- to medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) are the bread and butter of our economy. Providing much-needed employment and developing the skills of historically disadvantaged persons formally and informally are some of the most significant benefits of SMEs in a developing country such as South Africa. However, despite these significant contributions to the socioeconomic development of the country, SMEs generally have the lowest survival rates in the world as compared to large enterprises globally, resulting in high rates of business failure and the loss of jobs which these entities create. The Companies Act of 2008 replaces the previous judicial management …

The Rise-And-Fall Of Leading International Financial Centers: Factors And Application, Adam Church

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Note will look at the role of four broad factors that correspond with the rise-and-fall cycles among leading international financial centers. The four factors are: trust in a financial center’s abilities; the central banking and monetary policy systems of the center’s home nation; the home nation’s landscape of financial policy and regulation; and the overall stability of the financial center itself. First, this Note will undertake a broad historical survey of the shifts in prominence from Amsterdam to London, from London to New York, and from New York back to London to define the scope of these factors through …

Volkswagen's Bad Decisions & Harmful Emissions: How Poor Process Corrupted Codetermination In Germany's Dual Board Structure, Nicola Faith Sharpe

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Article directly challenges the often argued proposition that Ger-many’s two-tier board of directors is superior to America’s single-tier board structure. It argues that regardless of structure, any decision-making body that lacks effective decision-making processes is at signifcant risk of failure, scandal, and ineffectiveness. Legal scholars and policymakers have largely ignored the connection between decision-making processes and the efficacy of corporate leadership. The Article is the first to examine this underexplored relationship in the context of the German dual-board.

Volkswagen’s 2015 emissions scandal provides a vehcicle to critcally assess the relationship between Germany’s two-tiered board and an effec-tive decision-making process. …

Private Equity Investments In Microfinance In India, Hugh Manahan

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

A trail connects a skyscraper in Manhattan’s Financial District to a tiny food stand in a village in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Initially wild and overgrown, the trail now resembles a well-developed road, cleared and shaped. The trail does not connect customers to call centers or raw materials to laborers; the path connects lenders seeking abnormal returns on their investments to borrowers living in poverty. This is the path of private equity investments in microfinance. Microfinance is a powerful financial innovation that has changed personal finance in many parts of the world. While microfinance began as non-profit …

Legally "Strong" Shareholders Of Japan, Gen Goto

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Foreign investors often criticize Japanese corporations for not paying enough attention to the interests of their shareholders. It might surprise these critics, then, to learn that shareholders’ legal rights under the Japanese Companies Act are actually quite strong. Indeed, many of the rights that shareholders’ rights advocates often support, including shareholders’ power to alter a corporate charter without board consent, shareholders’ power to control dividend payments, majority voting for board elections, shareholders’ power to replace the board of directors, and shareholder access to a corporate ballot—all of which are strongly debated elsewhere— are already effective in Japan. Moreover, derivative suits …

Insider Trading And Other Securities Frauds In The United States: Lessons For Chile, Dante Figueroa

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Article is a comparative analysis of insider trading law in the United States and Chile. The study summarily reviews the historical, political, and legal foundations of insider trading regulation in both jurisdictions, identifying areas of convergence, as well as areas in which the Chilean securities market could benefit vis- ` a-vis the more advanced experience of the considerably larger American securities market. The Article also highlights the axiological closeness between both jurisdictions concerning the protection of inside corporate information and the fiduciary role of those who intervene in securities markets in their various capacities (as investors, shareholders, corporate officers, …

Regulation Of Private Equity In Brazil: Policy Questions Presented And Critique, Shannon Guy

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

In this note, I explore some of the policy questions affecting Brazil’s private equity industry that the country must tackle. In Part II, Section A, I begin by asking the threshold question of whether the Brazilian government should play an active role in encouraging the growth of the private equity industry. I resolve that Brazil should play an active role in encouraging the industry’s growth to encourage several possible benefits to the real economy. Private equity may benefit the economy by providing job growth and job preservation, improved access to credit for firms that would not otherwise have funds, and …

Recent Changes In U.S. And U.K. Overseas Anti-Corruption Enforcement Under The Fcpa And The U.K. Bribery Law: Private Equity Compliance, Isaac A. Binkovitz

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The following discussion provides a preliminary guide for those tasked with steering private equity firms through the shifting obstacle course of overseas anti-corruption compliance. Section I briefly reviews the centrality of overseas anti-corruption enforcement and its role in creating a more hospitable business climate in emerging markets. Section I also examines the American and British enforcement regimes in general before analyzing the most recent changes–specifically, changes as to the scope of liability and expansion of their jurisdiction. This section is designed to help determine whether investments or acquisitions fall within the purview of either enforcement regime. Section II discusses various …

Favoritism And Corporate Law: The Confused Corporate Opportunity Doctrine In The Hyundai Motor Case, Hwa-Jin Kim, Seung Hwan Lee, Stephen M. Woodcock

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Core legal principles of U.S. corporate law are often met with perplexity in foreign jurisdictions. This is especially true for legal principles that are controversial even in the U.S. This Article takes the corporate opportunity doctrine and examines how it has been exported to the civil law regime in Korea. Korean conglomerates such as Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor Group have become major players in the global market, but corporate law and practice in Korea have had a difficult time keeping up with developments in the business sector. The Hyundai Motor Case demonstrates an ambitious, but ill-fated, attempt at the …

Private Equity In Brazil: Industry Overview And Regulatory Environment, Shannon Guy

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The overall goal of this note is to paint a picture of the current state of the private equity industry in Brazil and the existing regulations which must be obeyed to participate as a private equity investor. Part II of this note provides a brief history of the private equity industry in Brazil, discusses recent investor interest in the growing area, and introduces the main regulatory bodies in Brazil. Part III explains several specific rules that govern a private equity investment by breaking down the “life” of a private equity investment into four stages: (1) setting up the private equity …

Venture Capital Investments In China: The Use Of Offshore Financing Structures And Corporate Relocations, Jing Li

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Based on an analysis of the relevant Chinese laws and regulations governing the corporate governance structure of venture capital (“VC”)-invested firms, as well as a discussion on the feasibility of employing different alternatives to make direct and indirect VC investments in Chinese portfolio firms, this article studies a hand-collected sample consisting of the twenty-nine VCbacked Chinese portfolio firms that have been financed and listed from 1990 to 2005 in order to empirically show how these investments were actually made in practice. The findings show that twenty-three out of the twentynine firms received their VC investments in various offshore holding entities, …