The law is stated as at July 2006, before the enactment of the United Kingdom Fraud Act 2006. This thesis covers ‘serious’ corporate fraud and not commonplace petty fraud. I examined corporate fraud, concentrating on a comparison of the United Kingdom’s fraud with that of two civil law neighbouring countries, France and Germany, both with high financial activity, and also with a few American states, common law systems like the English legal system. The objective of this study is to identify ways of combating fraud in the UK by enquiry and discovery as to how fraud occurs and how the two different legal systems- civil and common law- treat fraud. The study reveals factors contributing to corporate fraud and recommendations for combating corporate fraud. Exploring the concept of fraud, my findings are that corporate fraud is facing exponential increase, with the UK government beginning to acknowledge this. I examined the agencies that combat fraud in the states mentioned above including the UK. Although the UK is party to an impressive number of Treaties, which help to combat fraud, treaties dealing with terrorism, drug dealing, money laundering, and other organised crime, corporate fraud is still a serious problem. The conclusions can be summarised as follows. The UK could learn much from the French legal system and the way France prosecutes corporations as per Articles 132, 222, 432, 433 and 435 of the French Penal Code. Germany’s Criminal Code is equally comprehensive in its prescriptive definitions of frauds including corporate frauds as in chapters 8, 19, 2, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 30 of the German Criminal Code. The new UK’s non-codified general, core, offence of fraud, with fraud offences maintained in other statutes such as the Companies Act, likens the UK fraud regulation closer to the US’s with its Criminal Code and other statutes that deal with fraud. The UK has not yet caught up with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 as regards electronic business systems’ rules. The USA’s federal prescriptive code for fraud offences is akin to the French and German criminal codes and these are found in US Federal Penal Code Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47, sections 1020 to 1084. Legal privilege is fraud exempt in the United but not in France and Germany. Legal privilege in the UK is partly exempt for SFO investigations and mandatory money laundering reporting.

The thesis examines the efficacy of the provisions of Saudi Company Law 1965 in terms of protecting the rights of minority shareholders in joint stock companies (JSCs). The aim is to assess the effectiveness of the current form of SCL 1965 in this regard and to suggest a reform scheme. This research finds that SCL 1965 does not adequately provide minority shareholders with all the rights that they should enjoy. Accordingly, minority shareholders are often subject to the controlling influence of majority shareholders, who are generally in charge of the company’s management. As a result, minority shareholders either do not exercise or do not enjoy certain rights, and they therefore forfeit their natural and intended role under this law, which is to oversee and control the activities of the board of the company, and in so doing to defend their interests. Despite the Saudi government intentions to conduct a range of reforms, particularly in the field of trade, SCL 1965 has not been modified to any significant degree; it is still not sufficiently effective, and does not address many important points relating to shareholders’ rights in listed companies. Therefore, there are important decisions that need to be made on the part of the Saudi legislature in terms of improving the investment environment in KSA, including improving the level of protection for investors in JSCs; these decisions will help to attract more investors into the Saudi financial market. This thesis suggests ways in which to improve the level of protection for minority shareholders in Saudi listed companies against any encroachment on their interests within the company. In this respect, it suggests recasting the provisions relating to minority shareholders, especially SCL 1965.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to present, investigate and especially to analyse the legal rules that apply in the process of changing of the generation of the ownership of Swedish agriculture and forestry family business. The methods that this study include are: unplanned succession of ownership, i.e. inheritance, and planned succession of ownership, i.e. gift and purchase. The succession method that is the most cost efficient must be established in every single case depending on the situation of the current owners and the successors. Even a combina-tion between the different methods is possible. The different legal areas that apply in the process of change of generation are Family law, which is one of the cornerstones, Tax law as well as the laws of finance. The “soft” issues, i.e. relationship related, constitute a great part of the process of succession and are therefore in many ways decisive to a successful change of generation of the ownership of a family business.</p><p>Unplanned succession of ownership is often the result of the owner passing away. In the absence of a legal will the possessions will be portioned to the surviving relatives according to the laws of inheritance, which may lead to undesired consequences. When the estate inventory is registered, among other issues, a tax is imposed on the forestry account. The consequence of this is that the estate, as a legal entity, must remain for several years, in order to avoid high taxation, which leads to, shared ownership between the legatees.</p><p>A change of generation by the methods of gift or purchase, carried out during the lifetime of the older generation, would benefit from considerable planning. Too many and complicated legal rules make it difficult for the owner of a private business to survey what impact each method will have long term. Therefore, it is important to strive for the simplification of these laws. Two of the principles of Swedish tax law, that this thesis analyse, decide in an unsatisfactory way which method to choose for succession of ownership, which is why a change of the law is necessary.</p><p>It is also necessary to simplify the legal rules to entice a new generation of entrepreneurs into agriculture and forestry, who have ambitions of development and growth.</p> / <p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att presentera, utreda och framför allt analysera de rättsregler som blir aktuella i samband med generationsskifte av familjeägda jord- och skogsbruksföretag, bedrivna som enskild näringsverksamhet. De generationsskiftesmetoder som denna uppsats behandlar är vid oplanerat generationsskifte, arv, och vid planerat generationsskifte, gåva och köp. Vilken av dessa generationsskiftesmetoder som är den mest kostnadseffektiva måste avgöras i varje enskilt fall beroende på de förutsättningar som finns hos de enskilda ägarna och övertagarna. Även en kombination av de olika metoderna kan bli aktuellt. De olika rättsområden som berörs i generationsskiftesprocessen är familjerätt, som är en av hörnpelarna, skatterätt likväl som viss företagsekonomi. Relationsbaserade, ”mjuka”, frågor utgör en stor del av den totala generationsskiftesprocessen och har på flera sätt en avgörande betydelse för ett lyckat skifte.</p><p>Oplanerade generationsskiften blir ofta aktuella i samband med att ägaren avlider. Vid avsaknad av testamente fördelas kvarlåtenskapen på de efterlevande enligt den legala arvsordningen, vilket kan få oönskade konsekvenser. I samband med att bouppteckning registreras, skall bland annat medel på skogskonto tas upp till beskattning. Detta får till följd att den mest kostnadseffektiva lösningen kan blir att dödsboet ”måste” bestå i ett antal år för att kunna ta ut dessa medel utan hög beskattning, då samägande blir en av konsekvenserna.</p><p>Vid planerade generationsskiften, genom gåva eller köp, som genomförs under den äldre generationens livstid är god framförhållning av stor betydelse. Många och komplicerade rättsregler gör det dock svårt för den enskilda näringsidkaren att överblicka vad gåvo- och köpealternativen får för positiva och negativa konsekvenser på längre sikt, varför en förenkling av reglerna är att eftersträva. De inom skatterätten förekommande huvudsaklighetsprincipen och kontinuitetsprincipen styr på ett otillfredsställande sätt valet av generationsskiftesmetod, varför en lagändring, enligt min åsikt, bör ske.</p><p>Att underlätta reglerna kring generationsskiften är en nödvändighet för att locka en ny generation entreprenörer med tillväxtambitioner till jord- och skogsbruket.</p>

There are two tasks of this dissertation. Firstly, it will make a contribution from a theoretical perspective. Some Western scholars conclude that rules and institutions transplanted from Western jurisdictions have not worked well in the Chinese legal system so far. This is because the level of consistency between the transplanted rules or institutions and the local context is still at a low level. However, this dissertation takes a different position. By solving a series of unanswered questions, it will make a theoretical contribution to the scholarship on comparative corporate governance in the context of the transitional economy. By and large, it will answer the question: "why can China, as representative of a transitional economy, not escape from the faith of legal transplant in its legal reform of corporate governance". Secondly, this dissertation will make a contribution from a practical perspective. Many Chinese lawyers and Western scholars complain that Chinese company law is suffering deeply from the problem of ambiguity. Indeed, it is poorly and inconsistently drafted. There is, nevertheless, no systematic study on how to solve this problem in a pragmatic manner. In light of the proposed theoretical research, this dissertation will provide an important response on this issue. It rebuilds the director's fiduciary duties and shareholder's fiduciary duties by inserting some workable legal rules from the UK into the existing legal regime in China.

Moroccan manufacturing firms generally choose to incorporate under one of two legal forms: ‘Société Anonyme’ (SA) and ‘Société À Responsibilité Limitée’ (SARL). This thesis is about that choice and its consequence for firms’ access to bank overdraft facilities. In 2001, Morocco made a radical change to its company law regime: it replaced a company law dating from 19th-century France with modern standards of corporate governance and accountability. In Chapter One, I use the two-period FACS/ICA panel to analyse that reform and to evaluate its impact upon manufacturing firms’ access to bank credit. I find that the reform induced a substantial share of SA firms to switch to SARL, and that — relative to firms remaining in the SA status — this caused a significant and substantial withdrawal of bank overdraft facilities. In Chapter Two, I develop a theoretical model in which an agent signals its continuous type by using a variable that may take one of only two values (a ‘binary signal’); this is intended to represent a firm’s choice of legal status. I show that this binary signal provides only ‘coarse information’, and I consider the consequences of this coarseness; I solve for equilibrium conditions and I consider both the role of a principal’s risk aversion and the role of other observable agent characteristics (‘indices’). Chapter Three uses the results of Chapter Two to develop a new structural methodology for the separate identification of information and incentive effects. I apply the method to the data used in Chapter One, on the subset of firms having an overdraft facility in both survey periods (approximately two-thirds of the total sample). I find that, among that limited sample, there is no relevant information asymmetry. I estimate the potential welfare loss and conclude that, in the 95% confidence region of potential information effects and incentive effects, the maximum median welfare loss from information asymmetry is equivalent to approximately only 3% of the median bank overdraft limit. For the sample of firms having an overdraft facility in both survey periods, this challenges the common narrative that information asymmetry is an important reason for bank credit market failure.

European Private Company (function, state of preparation of European legislation and perspectives) The European Private Company is to become a new company form based on European law. The proposal for a Regulation regarding the European Private Company Statute (hereinafter: Regulation) presented by the European Commission aims at improving conditions for small and medium enterprises (hereinafter: SME's) in the European Single Market by providing them with the same, flexible and uniform set of company law rules across European Union. The European Company Statute is expected to reduce complying costs and remove some obstacles SME's are now facing when conducting cross-border business. The aim of my thesis is to identify the objectives of the proposal and to illustrate the state of discussion on European Private Company among Member States. It seeks to describe the reasons and the approach of European Commission when drafting provisions on some core issues of the proposal and to address the changes these provisions have been subjected to during the discussion in European Council. This paper attempts to outline the perspectives of European Private Company Statute proposed by Commission compared with the perspectives of Compromise proposals introduced by Presidency of European Council. The thesis is...

La thèse a pour ambition de confronter un grand classique du droit des sociétés, la notionmême de société, avec les exigences confinant parfois au « vampirisme financier » de cetarchétype du capitalisme financier qu’est un « Leveraged Buy Out ». Un LBO se traduit, sousl’angle du droit des sociétés, par la constitution d’un ensemble sociétaire composé de deuxsociétés : celle qui achète (la holding de reprise) et celle qui est achetée (la « cible »). Pouraussi importante que soit la seconde, c’est à l’étage supérieur, celui de la holding de reprise,que sont cristallisées les spécificités du montage et leur incidence sur la notion de société.Cette incidence est mesurée au niveau du fond (Partie I) et de la forme (Partie II) de lasociété qui sert de pierre angulaire au montage de LBO.PARTIE I : L’INCIDENCE DU LBO SUR LE FOND DE LA SOCIETELe fond de la société étudiée a été entendu comme ce qu’elle a d’essentiel et qui lui donneconsécutivement son identité. La démonstration a été conduite à partir de deux aspectsfondamentaux de cette société: ce qu’elle fait, c'est-à-dire son activité (Titre I) et ce qu’elleest, c’est à dire sa qualification (Titre II). Ces deux aspects reflètent bien, dans un LBO, latéléologie de la holding de reprise, cette dimension fonctionnelle de la société qu’a simagistralement mise en lumière l’« Ecole de Rennes ». La holding de reprise a en effet unedouble finalité : elle organise à la fois une opération sociétaire (une prise de contrôle aveceffet de levier) et une opération contractuelle (un « contrat d’investissement » entendu commeun contrat de prêt d’argent), la seconde étant clairement l’accessoire de la première. Cettepremière partie conduit l’auteur à proposer de renouveler l’étude de certaines questionsmajeures en droit des sociétés, comme celle de la nature juridique de l’acquisition et de ladétention du contrôle d’une société commerciale (la « cible ») ou encore celle de laqualification proposée en doctrine de « contrat d’investissement » d’une société (telle laholding de reprise) dont le capital est ouvert à des professionnels du capital investissement.PARTIE II : L’INCIDENCE DU LBO SUR LA FORME DE LA SOCIETELe mot forme doit être ici compris dans une double acception. Il est d’abord retenu dans sonsens taxinomique comme faisant référence aux différents types de sociétés qui peuvent êtreutilisés pour jouer le rôle d’habit juridique de la holding de reprise. Il vise également, defaçon subséquente et liée, l’aboutissement du travail du spécialiste du droit des sociétés4cherchant, une fois un type de société choisi, à en utiliser toutes les potentialités pour adapterle type choisi aux besoins spécifiques du montage de LBO. La raison de l’incidence du LBO àce niveau tient à la nécessité de rechercher un maximum de liberté contractuelle pourpermettre cette adaptation de la forme au fond. Il s’agit en effet de pouvoir choisir dans lapalette des instruments offerts par le droit des sociétés ceux qui permettront d’organiser leplus efficacement possible d’une part, l’effet de levier attendu sous l’angle juridique del’interposition de la holding de reprise entre le repreneur et la « cible », d’autre part lepartenariat entre ce repreneur et les financiers qui participent au « tour de table » de cetteholding. La démonstration est conduite d’abord pour un montage national (Titre I) puis pourun montage transfrontalier (Titre II). / The dissertation means to focus on confronting a classic of corporate law, the very notion ofcompany, with the requirements often bordering on « financial vampirism » related to thisarchetype of financial capitalism, the « Leveraged Buy Out ». A LBO embodies, from thepoint of view of corporate law, the setting-up of a grouping made up of two companies, one :the take-over holding company, the other : the one that is being bought, the « target ».However important the latter may be, it is at the upper level, the take-over holding company,that the specific features of the financial set-up and their impact on the notion of company arebest given a definite form. The impact is measured according to the content (Part I) and theform (Part II) of the company which acts as the cornerstone in the financial set-up of a LBO.PART I : THE IMPACT OF THE LBO ON THE CONTENT OF THE COMPANYThe content of the company studied here, has been grasped as what constitutes its essential,defining consequently its identity. The demonstration has been conducted from thefundamental aspects of the company : what it does, i-e its operations (Heading I) and itsnature, i.e its qualification (Heading II). The two aspects well evince, in a LBO, theteleology of the take-over holding company, that functional dimension of the company, sobrilliantly expounded by the « Rennes School ». Indeed the take-over holding company has adouble purpose : organizing both a share-holding operation (a take-over with leverage) and acontractual operation (an investment contract conceived as a loan contract), the latter beingclearly incidental to the former. This first part lead us to propose renewing the study of somemajors questions related to corporate law such as the legal nature of the control acquisitionand holding of a trading company (the « target ») as well as that of the qualification putforwardas doctrine of « investment contract » of a company (such as a take-over holdingcompany) with a capital open to professionals of capital investment.PART II. THE IMPACT OF THE LBO ON COMPANY STRUCTUREThe word form should here be understood in tis double meaning. It is first used in itstaxinomic sense, referring to the different company structures that can be applied to play therole of legal outfit for the take-over holding company. It also aims, subsequently and closelylinked, at the outcome of the corporate law specialist’s task, once the company’s structure has6been chosen, endeavouring to use all its inherent capacities for growth in order to adapt thechosen structure to the specific requirements entailed in the setting-up of the LBO.The reason of the LBO’s impact at his stage stems for the need for seeking the maximumcontractual freedom allowing the adaptation of structure to content. It is indeed a matter ofbeing able to choose in range of instruments made available by corporate law, those allowingto organize as efficiently as possible on the one hand, the legally expected leverage performedin the take-over holding company’s intervention between the rescuer and the financiers takingpart in the take-over holding company’s investor round. The demonstration is first conductedfor a financial set-up at national level (Heading I) then cross-border (Heading II).

This dissertation seeks to improve the current understanding of the ways in which institutional reform can promote the development of stock markets in Latin America. Over the past decade, policymakers sought to stimulate the growth of capital markets in the region through the promotion of a standardized set of formal institutions. An example of this approach in the field of company law was the introduction of modern corporate governance practices into nations without a solid enforcement infrastructure. By most accounts, these efforts did not deliver on their promise of stock market development. This work identifies areas for potential reform. As a means to better understand the operation of Latin American stock markets, this dissertation draws from different sources, including the historical experience of industrialized nations, the available literature on institutional reform, the documented shortcomings of legal reform programmes and hand-collected data from various Latin American countries. The resulting analysis suggests that the promotion of Latin American capital markets may require strategies different to those that were set in motion over the past decade. The main contribution of this work is twofold. First, this dissertation brings some nuance to the discussions concerning the challenges faced by Latin American capital markets. A proper understanding of these challenges is essential for policymakers in the region, particularly after the onset of the Latin American Integrated Market. Second, this dissertation explores the use of ‘transitional strategies’ to overcome some of the challenges identified here. The ultimate goal of this project is to inform future reform efforts in Latin America and to offer some insights for policymakers in other emerging countries.

Over the last two decades, US corporate governance has witnessed a significant increase in the incidence and influence of shareholder activism. Shareholder activism, however, has been found to be inconsistent with US corporate governance which is framed within director primacy theory. In this theory, the board is able to carry out a unique combination of managerial and monitoring roles effectively, and shareholders are only capital providers to companies. Shareholder activism is normatively found inimical to effective and efficient decision-making, i.e. the board's authority, and to the long-term interests of public companies. The increasing willingness of institutional shareholders to participate into the decision-making processes of their portfolio companies is at odds with US corporate governance. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to examine whether director primacy theory should be softened to accommodate greater shareholder activism in US corporate governance. This thesis presents an analysis of the legal rules that reflect director primacy theory. In this respect, US shareholders have traditionally had limited participatory power. The way in which the courts perceived the board's authority also stymied shareholder participation. This thesis considers not only legal and regulatory developments in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, but also the governance developments through by-law amendments which could potentially make an overall change in the balance of power between shareholders and the board. Shareholders are slowly moving to the centre of corporate governance in the US. History has shown that the board of directors often failed to prevent manager-induced corporate governance failures. This thesis argues that shareholder activism is necessary for improving the web of monitoring mechanisms and for a well-functioning director primacy model. Shareholder activism forces the board to more critical about management, which is a prerequisite for the director primacy model. Therefore, this thesis argues that shareholder activism should therefore be accommodated into US corporate governance. The proposed approach addresses accountability problems more effectively than the current director primacy model while recognising the board authority and enhances decision-making processes of public companies. In this regard, it makes several recommendations to soften the current director primacy model: establishing a level playing for private ordering, adopting the proxy access default regime, the majority voting rule, the universal proxy rules, and enhancing the disclosure requirements of shareholders. The present research also demonstrates that contemporary shareholder activism involves many complexities. It contains different types of shareholder activism, which differ by objectives, tools, and motives. It could be used for purely financial purposes or non-financial purposes or both. Furthermore, the concept of stewardship has been developed to address public interest concerns, namely short-termism in the market and pressures by activist funds through shareholder activism. In this way, this thesis develops a complete positive theory about shareholder activism rather than focussing on a specific type of activism. This complete analytical framework constitutes more reliable basis to draw normative conclusions rather than focussing on a particular type of activism.

<p>Brysselkonventionen, Luganokonventionen och Bryssel-I-förordningen syftar till att skapa ett ömsesidigt erkännande av undertecknande länders domstolar och domar i civila och kommersiella mål, för att därigenom effektivisera domstolsprocesserna, öka rättssäkerheten och förenkla den europeiska processföringen över medlemsstaternas gränser. Således är det idag möjligt för en svensk medborgare att, under vissa omständigheter, starta en process mot en tysk medborgare, i exempelvis Italien.</p><p>Medlemsländernas domstolsförfarande kan dock skilja sig avsevärt från varandra, inte minst när det kommer till tiden det tar för en process att handläggas. Italien och Belgien har utpekats som två länder där handläggningstiden är avsevärt mycket längre än i andra medlemsländer. Den långa handläggningstiden kan tillsammans med reglerna om litispendens missbrukas för att bromsa upp alternativt förhindra att en sanktion meddelas. Problemet har speciellt uppmärksammats på det patenträttsliga området.</p><p>Torpedstrategin, som den kallas, syftar till att förhindra alternativt fördröja patenthavarens möjligheter att föra process mot intrångsmakaren. Det som har möjliggjort detta är dels reglerna i det privaträttsliga domstolssamarbetet, dels avsaknaden av ett europeiskt harmoniseringsarbete på patenträttens område och dels de nationella skillnaderna i domstolarnas handläggningstid.</p><p>Förutom att begränsa möjligheten för patenthavaren att skydda sitt patent, vilket på sikt kan leda till att det ekonomiska värdet av patent i urholkas Europa, kan förekomsten av torpedstrategin leda till ett ineffektivt agerande mellan inblandade parter vid en patenttvist.</p><p>Praxis på både nationell nivå och europanivå har dock utvecklats mot ett restriktivt förtydligande av den extraterritoriella jurisdiktionen. Den belgiska domstolen, som länge har varit ett populärt mål för torpedstrategin, har nyligen i två uppmärksammade fall troligen begränsat möjligheten att genomföra ett lyckat torpedförfarande där. Även EG-domstolen förväntas komma med ett utslag som begränsar torpedstrategins framtidsutsikter.</p><p>Den lösning som länge diskuterats i EU är införandet av ett gemenskapspatent som skall vara ett enda patent med samma rättsverkningar i samtliga medlemsstater. Tanken är att gemenskapspatenten skall vara oberoende nationell rätt och att patenttvister angående såväl giltighet som intrång skall avgöras av en central domstol under GD.</p>