What is Corporate Law?
What is Corporate Law?
复制标题
什么是公司法？
DOI：
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739630.003.0001
复制
发表时间：
2004
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Reinier H. Kraakman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Henry Hansmann;Reinier H. Kraakman
本文是《公司法剖析：比较法和功能法》的第一章。本书整体上对欧洲、美国和日本的公司法进行了功能分析。其组织结构反映了所有司法管辖区的公司法结构，而各个章节则探讨了针对公司法常见问题的司法管辖方法的多样性。作为本书的介绍性章节，本文描述了公司法的功能和边界。我们首先详细介绍公司形式的标志性特征的经济重要性：法人资格、有限责任、可转让股份、委托管理和投资者所有权。然后，我们确定了公司形式中存在的主要代理问题，因此，公司法必须解决这些问题：管理者与股东之间、控股股东与少数股东之间、以及作为公司类别的股东与非股东群体（如债权人和雇员）之间的冲突。我们认为，公司法在一定程度上使合同法和物权法适应公司形式，并在很大程度上解决与这种形式相关的代理问题。公司法不仅包括上市公司和私营公司（例如德国有限责任公司和法国有限责任公司）的法律，还包括传统上被认为是证券监管的大部分内容。这些法律体系中的每一个都保障了公司控制人的商业自由裁量权的范围，同时也在股东和非股东群体的机会主义风险特别严重的情况下限制了这种自由裁量权。除了《公司法剖析》第一章、第二章之外，“缓解代理问题的策略”（全文）也将在 SSRN 上提供。第三章摘要：基本治理结构；第四章：债权人保护；第五章：关联交易；第六章：重大公司行为；第 7 章：控制交易；第 8 章：发行人和投资者保护；第 9 章：超越解剖学也将在 SSRN 上提供。
This article is the first chapter of "The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach." The book as a whole provides a functional analysis of corporate (or company) law in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. Its organization reflects the structure of corporate law across all jurisdictions, while individual chapters explore the diversity of jurisdictional approaches to the common problems of corporate law. As the book's introductory chapter, this article describes the functions and boundaries of corporate law. We first detail the economic importance of the corporate form's hallmark features: legal personality, limited liability, transferable shares, delegated management, and investor ownership. We then identify the major agency problems that attend the corporate form, and that, therefore, corporate law must address: conflicts between managers and shareholders, between controlling and minority shareholders, and between shareholders as a class and non-shareholder constituencies of the firm such as creditors and employees. In our view, corporate law serves in part to accommodate contract and property law to the corporate form and, in substantial part, to address the agency problems that are associated with this form. Corporate law includes not only the law of public and private companies (such as the German GmbH and the French SARL) but also much of what is traditionally considered to be securities regulation. Each of these bodies of law safeguards the scope of business discretion for corporate controllers while also restricting this discretion where the risk of opportunism vis-a-vis shareholder and non-shareholder constituencies is particularly acute. In addition to Chapter 1, Chapter 2 of the Anatomy of Corporate Law, "Strategies for Mitigating Agency Problems" will be available (full text) on the SSRN. The abstracts for Chapter 3: The Basic Governance Structure; Chapter 4: Creditor Protection; Chapter 5: Related Party Transactions; Chapter 6: Significant Corporate Actions; Chapter 7: Control Transactions; Chapter 8: Issuers and Investor Protection; Chapter 9: Beyond the Anatomy will also be available on the SSRN.