The European Financial Market in Transition ( European Company Law Series 9)

Focusing on three themes takeovers, shareholder democracy, and the reshaping of the framework for the European financial market in this milestone volume 22 European academics, practitioners, and policymakers describe and analyse the most important recent changes and emerging trends in the market, its regulation, and its relation to corporate governance and company law. Among the issues treated in depth are the following: the need for a reform of the Takeover Directive; disclosure of cash-settled derivatives; disclosure by companies of information on barriers to takeovers; the efficiency of the comply and explain principle; the enhanced focus on sustainable returns and long-term performance in the Green Paper from 2011; the costs of shareholder activism; winning coalitions versus ownership concentration; legal proceedings brought by shareholders against companies; the principle of shareholder primacy in company law; engaging institutional investors in decision-making processes; shareholder opportunism; hidden ownership and empty voting as a corporate governance challenge; the handling of systemic risk; regulation of the alternative fund industry; balance among fund governance, market governance, and stakeholder governance; the fragmentation of trading venues; and ; pre-IPO trading of shares on private secondary markets.