The prevalence of corporate social responsibility has been continually increasing over recent years. The debate of whether a business should act in a manner that furthers societal needs or if they should simply focus their efforts on maximizing shareholder value is of popular interest since it affects the fundamental structures of how a business will operate. One of the major influencing theories in favor of social responsibility is the stakeholder theory. The opposing viewpoint is the shareholder theory, which highlights that the sole responsibility for a corporation is to act in a way that maximizes profits. This thesis will outline the stakeholder and shareholder theories to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the debate and then offer a critical and philosophical analysis of shareholder theory to ultimately argue why the moral significance of a promise better promotes maximizing shareholder value.

Due to length and time constraints, this dissertation will briefly examine and provide an overview of the current method that courts have adopted in bringing a class action in Southern Africa and internationally. Specific focus will be on the Unites States of America, Australia and the Canadian province of Ontario. Challenges of bringing a class action will also be discussed, with a view of ascertaining the most appropriate or well-suited method of bringing a class action under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008. The main issue that will be analysed will be the certification process. The key question to be answered is which approach or procedure, in dealing with the certification requirements under various jurisdictions, should South Africa adopt or incorporate into, class action procedure legislation? In chapter one I will introduce the concept of a class action as it is a relatively new concept found in South African consumer legislation. Different definitions of a class action will be discussed in context of particular statutes. I will define and highlight the purposes of a class action in South Africa and show why there is firstly, a need for such a procedure and secondly why there is a need for such procedure to be codified into legislation. In chapter two I will discuss certain important aspects of class actions. The purpose of this is to identify the main features of a class action. Ultimately, the purpose will be to discuss whether or not these features should be included in South African class actions. Chapter three will commence with the comparative perspective portion of this paper. The legislation adopted by the United States, will be discussed in chapter three followed by a discussion of the Ontario legislation in chapter four and the Australian legislation in chapter 5. The approaches that these jurisdictions have taken in respect of a class action procedure serve as a basis upon which a class action procedure for South Africa will be recommended. Chapter six will provide conclusions that have been drawn through analysis of the foreign jurisdictions’ class action procedures which will reflect the best and worst elements of a class action procedure. This is significant in determining what type of class action procedure would be best suited to South Africa. Chapter seven will highlight the current South African approach to class actions through an examination of case law and a Report by the South African Law Commission. This chapter will also analyse the short-comings in the South African approach through a critique of case law. In chapter eight of this paper I will propose an approach that South Africa should adopt with regard to a class action procedure that is best suited to South Africa’s social climate. Finally, I will conclude with a summation of the arguments presented in this paper in chapter nine. / Thesis (LL.M)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Orientador: Alfredo José dos Santos / Coorientador: Luiz Antônio Soares Hentz / Banca: Paulo Roberto Colombo Arnoldi / Banca: Gustavo Saad Diniz / Resumo: A presente dissertação busca contribuir para a solução de um problema relevante, qual seja, o curto prazo de duração das empresas familiares no Brasil. Trata-se de questão importante dada a posição relevante das empresas familiares na economia nacional. Diante desse problema, foram avaliados, sob o prisma do direito empresarial, os limites e as possibilidades de técnicas organizativas de poder de controle e dos princípios da governança corporativa no âmbito das empresas familiares, com o objetivo de possibilitar a sua perenidade e o incremento de sua atividade empresarial / Abstract: This study seeks to contribute for the solution of a relevant issue, named the short term of the family business in Brazil. This is a relevant issue considering the high importance of the family business within the national economy. Towards this issue, there were analyzed, under a corporate law approach, the boundaries and possibilities of control's organizational techniques and corporate governance principles applicable to family business aiming to achieve its continuity and enhance its corporate activity / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-09-15Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:20:01Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ribeiro_jcl_me_fran.pdf: 1089621 bytes, checksum: f72e69dff640410554cdd8615efb95ad (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / Este estudo busca identificar a sociedade anônima aberta como um modelo societário propício à formatação jurídica, organização e capitalização de empreendimentos do setor sucroalcooleiro. O estudo foca este setor específico da economia brasileira, em função de sua acentuada importância no cenário econômico mundial, do intenso crescimento, nas últimas décadas da demanda por açúcar, etanol e álcool anidro (em especial no que tange a esses combustíveis renováveis), bem como, em razão das mudanças administrativas e estruturais que vêm sendo aplicadas ultimamente nas empresas do setor. Nessa conjuntura, a pesquisa busca demonstrar como se organizam, atualmente, os diferentes agentes econômicos do setor e quais as principais estratégias aplicadas no sentido de se capitalizarem e, assim, promoverem medidas de reorganização administrativa e estrutural. Sob essas premissas, o estudo sugere a formatação jurídica das sociedades anônimas abertas, como um modelo viável para a organização de empreendimentos sucroalcooleiros que reúnam condições de experimentarem um potencial crescimento econômico, a partir da capitalização e da integração empresarial com outros empreendimentos relacionados ao setor. Para tanto, propõe-se a revelar os procedimentos necessários para a abertura de capital, especialmente quanto à reorganização societária, contratações de assessorias, realização de registros, comunicação e aprovação dos órgãos governamentais, bem como aqueles demandados quando da realização de oferta de ações, debêntures e demais valores mobiliários a serem negociados no mercado de capitais. Na mesma conjuntura focaliza as implicações decorrentes do processo de abertura de capital e as principais dificuldades enfrentadas pelos empreendedores que lançam mão dessa empreitada ou que... / This study intends to identify the publicly traded companies as a corporate model propitious to capitalize, to legally format and to organize the assets of the sugar and alcohol sector. This study focuses on this specific sector of the Brazilian economy due to its accented importance on the global economy to its intense increase in the last decades on the demand for sugar, ethanol and anhydrous ethanol (particularly regarding these renewable fuels) as well as to the administrative and to the structural modifications that have been lately applied in its companies. Considering this juncture, this research intends to show how the different economic agents of the sector are organize, nowadays, and which the main strategies are applied in order to capitalize and, therefore, promote measures of administrative and of structural reorganization. Under these assumptions, the study proposes the legal formatting of the publicly traded companies as a viable model to the organization of the sugar and alcohol sector that gather conditions to experience an economic growth based on the capitalization and on the integration with other assets related to the sector. For that purpose, it aims to reveal the necessary procedures for initial public offerings, especially regarding the approval of government agencies, conducting legal records, corporate reorganization, hiring of consultancy, as well as the procedures demanded when issuance of debentures, stock offers and other securities offering to be traded on the capital market. It focuses on the implications of the initial public offering process and the main difficulties faced by the entrepreneurs who intend to apply the legal restructuring towards the flotation of shares. Finally, based on these surveys, this study tries to refer all these contents to the reality of this sector in order to emphasize... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

A atividade exercida pelos administradores de sociedades anônimas envolve a prática de uma série de atos de gestão não previamente ou exaustivamente definidos, estando sujeita, portanto, a uma margem de discricionariedade. Apesar das limitações impostas pela Lei e pelos Estatutos Sociais, ao administrador caberá, cotidianamente, escolher uma alternativa, dentre muitas possíveis, para cada negócio realizado pela companhia. A proposta deste trabalho é estudar a influência da regulação jurídica sobre as escolhas que são tomadas pelos administradores, mais precisamente o chamado dever de diligência, estudando, deste modo, como a escolha de determinados padrões de conduta pela regulação jurídica pode determinar a relação dos administradores com o risco empresarial e afetar a atividade econômica de um país. O estudo é conduzido em grande parte com a utilização da metodologia da análise econômica do direito, tendo em vista as frutíferas contribuições que as ferramentas de microeconomia podem trazer para construção de análises sobre os comportamentos de agentes econômicos. / The activity rendered by managers ahead of corporations contemplate series of acts not previously or thoroughly defined, being subjected, therefore, to a discretionary margin. Nonetheless all limits imposed by Law and by the company by-laws, a manager, every day, still should choose one alternative amongst many possible, for each company business. The purpose of this work is to study the influence of legal regulation over the choices made by company managers, more precisely about the duty of care, studying, in this sense, how certain behavioral patterns imposed by legal regulation can determine the relationship of company managers with business risks and, hence, affect economic activities in a country. The study is grounded in the methodology proposed by Law & Economics, considering all prolific contributions received by the microeconomic tools for the construction behavioral analysis of economical agents.

As environmental responsibility (ER) gains momentum in the corporate and stakeholder world, it is imperative to understand the relationship between ER and financial performance. While there is prior research looking at this relationship, this study provides further insight into the specific effects of negative and positive ER. In addition, it looks over the years 2008-2011 having implications for companies about the effects of their ER even through financial hardships. This study uses a widely respected corporate social responsibility database, in which ER scores were separated from. In this study, 287 firms in the S&P 500 are examined through times-series regression analyses. The results reveal that positive ER had a negative relationship with financial performance indicators Tobin’s q and ROA. However, negative ER had such strong positive relationship with financial performance in both measures, that when looking at the effect of net ER, the relationship was tipped back to positive. This indicates that negative ER worsens a company’s financial position more than spending on positive ER initiatives.

Confrontés au pouvoir de marché croissant de la grande distribution française, les fournisseurs n’ont cessé de demander l’intervention de l’Etat. Cette intervention a pris la forme du titre IV du livre IV du Code de commerce, un ensemble de règles juridiques encadrant les négociations commerciales annuelles entre distributeurs et fournisseurs. Cette thèse décrit les transformations du Titre IV et évalue la portée du recours au droit dans un contexte marchand. L’enquête porte sur l’élaboration des règles du Titre IV, le contrôle entrepris par la DGCCRF (une administration du ministère de l’Economie et des Finances) ainsi que l’appropriation de ces règles par l’une des enseignes de la distribution française. Les résultats éclairent les conditions sociales d’efficacité des lois destinées à protéger des acteurs économiques faibles. Pour rendre le Titre IV efficace, l’administration a introduit dans le droit des principes moraux et a incité les juges à s’écarter des normes écrites pour évaluer les situations au cas par cas. Les résultats montrent également les ambiguïtés d’un tel recours au droit. Pour s’approprier et contourner les règles dirigées contre elle, la grande distribution s’est dotée de ressources juridiques. Face à cela, l’administration a réagi en rendant les règles plus précises, facilitant ainsi de nouveaux contournements par les distributeurs. Le recours au droit crée également une solidarité entre les professionnels du Titre IV, qu’ils soient affiliés à l’administration, aux fournisseurs ou aux distributeurs. Chez ces professionnels, la défense de l’autonomie du monde du Titre IV finit par primer sur les intérêts des acteurs qu’ils sont censés représenter. / Faced with the increasing market power of French mass retail, suppliers lobbied the state into protecting them. The state intervened by creating a new set of rules (“Titre IV du livre IV du Code de commerce”: henceforth “Title IV”) that specifically targeted the annual bargaining process between retailers and suppliers. This dissertation describes the transformation of Title IV and questions whether law constitutes a useful resource to settle structural economic imbalances. To achieve this, I investigated how Title IV was drafted and enforced by DGCCRF (a department of the French ministry of Finance) and how retailers responded to those rules. Results show how to turn economic and commercial law into an effective weapon in the hands of weaker market players. To make Title IV effective, the state regulator incorporated moral principles into statutes and encouraged judges to adjudicate on a case-by-case basis, rather than strictly following the letter of the law. However, results also show the limits of law as a means of settling economic imbalances. By hiring lawyers and complying symbolically with regulations (rather than obeying the letter of the law), mass retailers gradually internalized Title IV. DGCCRF responded by drafting more precise rules. This had the unexpected consequence of making symbolic compliance even more widespread. Title IV had another unexpected effect. It created a sense of solidarity among a group of legal professionals and civil servants. To that group, defending the boundaries of Title IV as a field of expertise became more important than defending specific economic interests.

This thesis analyses the concept of unjust enrichment under the business law. First of all the thesis explains the term of business law. Business law is a complex of legal rules concerning the contractual relationships between entrepreneurs arising from their business activities. Business law is a comprehensive field of law which extends into many other fields of law, both private and public law. Equally the regulation of unjust enrichment within the business law expands into many other laws with particular specialization, but these laws are not subject of this thesis. For these laws the subsidiary legislation is included in the civil code., therefore this thesis focuses on the general regulation of unjust enrichment included in the civil code. Further the thesis continues with a historical development of both business law and unjust enrichment. The historical view begins with roman law, continues with the regulation of unjust enrichment under the ABGB and ends with regulation under the so. socialist law. Further in the text is referred to the historical chapter to facilitate understanding of a present regulation. Next chapter of the thesis describes the current regulation of unjust enrichment, mainly under the civil code, and from the reason mentioned above it is not going into the particular...

The thesis analyses the legal concept of unjust enrichment in business law. General legal regulation of unjust enrichment itself has never been included in Commercial Code though it had to be interpreted according to the general regulation contained in the Civil Code. This conception remained unchanged even after the re-codification of civil law, which abolished the Commercial Code, thus we no longer need to differentiate between legal relationships which are of a commercial nature and those which are not. The conclusions reached by the Supreme Court in correlation with the previous legislation cannot be completely abandoned - based on the transitional provisions of the Civil Code - the preceding legislation, and therefore the conclusions of the case law relating thereto, remain applicable. The thesis analyses unjust enrichment, mainly from the perspective of civil law. The commercial aspect is provided in comparison to the previous legislation which focuses on the specifics or application problems in relation to unjust enrichment that have arisen in commercial law. For this purpose, the thesis deals with related legal concepts such as limitation of claims resulting from unjust enrichment, the invalidity of legal acts, etc. The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter analyses the...

The diploma thesis discusses the issues of ethics and codes of ethics in business. The theoretical part defines basic concepts of ethics, presents its historical development and the methods and tools of business ethics. It also focuses on ethical codes and the area of law and ethics. The practical part consists of a quantitative survey, which provides views of selected business entities of business ethics and the use of codes of ethics in practice.