The origins of company law : methods and approaches / edited by Victoria Barnes and Jonathan Hardman.

Oxford : Hart Publishing, 2024.

1st edition

202415

Corporation law -- History.

Law -- History.

Introduction

1. When did English company law begin?

2. On mistakes and trajectories: using history in normative company law

3. New approaches in corporate law history: history as a resource for navigating uncertain times

4. The unexpected origins of the US limited liability partnership

5. Upending the State's power to regulate corporate separateness

6. Salomon and Sequana: the central significance of separate legal entity

7. Three regimes: corporations and regulation in US history

8. Early American corporations and the public purpose

9. Capitalism as personal: Brunner, Mond & Co Ltd (1881-1926)

10. The corporate share: from membership to financial interest to contractual design

11. Natural unity? The origins of the principle of inseparability of voting rights from shares across jurisdictions

12. From managerialism to shareholder primacy: the role of the Cohen committee and the Bank of England

13. 'A few pike in a trout river'? Hostile take-over bids and dividend restraint: the debate in government in the 1950s

14. The right to repose in peace: the making of modern company law

15. Epilogue.

This book provides histories of company law, uniting a variety of approaches from law, business and management, economics, and history. What were the origins of company law? How did it begin? Why did it change? There is no single answer to these questions. Each discipline, and sub-discipline, has a different approach and method that brings different facets of study to the fore. This multidisciplinary endeavour is immensely valuable for debates taking place now among policy-makers in the UK and US about returning to historic modes of company regulation. The book brings together Anglo-American scholarship that will not only shed greater light on the history of company law but also influence contemporary debates about our ability to return to, or learn from, the past. Historical research has great value here because it not only generates new insights into the evolution of present legal rules, but also corrects misunderstandings and misapprehensions about them. The book shows how this body of law developed to become the rules with which we are now familiar. It showcases antecedents of present debates, reveals regulatory lessons from previous legal regimes, identifies instances of path dependency, unpicks pivotal legal events, and explains drivers for legal change. The chapters re-evaluate the history of company law, and the knowledge gathered here will inform the law-making and policy-making agenda. - Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9781509964444

vi, 356 pages ; 25 cm