Law Commons^™

Delaware's New Competition, William J. Moon

Northwestern University Law Review

According to the standard account in American corporate law, states compete to supply corporate law to American corporations, with Delaware dominating the market. This “competition” metaphor in turn informs some of the most important policy debates in American corporate law.

This Article complicates the standard account, introducing foreign nations as emerging lawmakers that compete with American states in the increasingly globalized market for corporate law. In recent decades, entrepreneurial foreign nations in offshore islands have used permissive corporate governance rules and specialized business courts to attract publicly traded American corporations. Aided in part by a select group of private sector …

Ec Reforms Of Corporate Governance And Capital Markets Law: Do They Tackle Insiders' Opportunism?, Luca Enriques, Matteo Gatti

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Company and capital markets laws are rapidly evolving everywhere: there are few countries around the world where they have not been the subject of reform or where at least a reform agenda has not been devised. There are various reasons for this, both global and local. Among the global (or common) reasons for reform, two at least deserve to be singled out: large-scale market crises or prominent economic scandals, and financial development.

A Comparative Analysis Of Shareholder Protections In Italy And The United States: Parmalat As A Case Study, Lorenzo Segato

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The goal of this article is to compare the protections offered to minority shareholders by the Italian system of corporate law with those offered by the U.S. legal system of corporate and securities law in order to determine if Parmalat's minority shareholders would have been better off had Parmalat been an American company listed in the U.S. financial market. This analysis will reveal several weaknesses in Italian corporate and securities laws, thereby providing a basis for suggestions on how to improve minority shareholders' rights in Italy based on the U.S. experience. Section II of this paper provides an overview of …

The Alien Tort Claims Act: Temporary Stopgap Measure Or Permanent Remedy, Borchien Lai

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

As the world has become smaller through technological advances in travel and communication, the international marketplace has grown larger. The United Nations ("U.N.") estimates that the number of multinational corporations tripled between 1988 and 1997 to 60,000. As these corporations increase their investments abroad, they also face proportionately increasing pressure from investors to run successful operations and increase profits. The result of this dynamic is well-documented. Multinational corporations invest heavily in underdeveloped countries where natural resources are abundant and labor is cheap. To facilitate operations in the country, the corporations must establish a rapport with the host governments-and often, in …

A Road Map For Corporate Governance In East Asia, Chee Keong Low

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Much has transpired since the inadequacies of corporate governance practices in East Asia were glaringly exposed by the Asian financial crisis. The crisis brought to the foreground numerous deficiencies, which had common roots in excessive over-leverage as well as the lack of transparency, disclosure and accountability. These issues have been explicitly recognized with the release of the White Paper on Corporate Governance in Asia by the Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance in June 2003.

By responding in part to the White Paper, this article sets out a "roadmap" whose ultimate objective is the enhancement of the practice of corporate governance …

China's Evolving Company Legislation: A Status Report, Preston M. Torbert

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

As China's economic reforms have progressed, however, the need for a company law has become apparent. The two principal reasons are, first, the need to reform existing state-owned enterprises and, second, the need to create a means for foreign investment in reformed state-owned enterprises. For political reasons, there appears to be no perceived need for the company law to encourage larger privately-owned enterprises.