Moore, Marc T. --- "Shareholder primacy, labour and the historic ambivalence of UK company law" [2018] ELECD 71; in Wells, Harwell (ed), "Research Handbook on the History of Corporate and Company Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 142

Book Title: Research Handbook on the History of Corporate and Company Law

Editor(s): Wells, Harwell

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781784717650

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Shareholder primacy, labour and the historic ambivalence of UK company law

Author(s): Moore, Marc T.

Number of pages: 28

Abstract/Description:

Chapter 6 focuses more tightly on a particular aspect of UK company law, the widely accepted generalization that, in contrast to many other jurisdictions. UK company law has always given primacy to shareholders. While not disagreeing with this generalization—indeed, the author, Marc Moore, shows the collection of legal rules and principles that tend to establish it today—he argues that this primacy has been more contested than is recognized. Across the twentieth century there has been a good deal of ‘doctrinal and ideological turbulence’ in UK company law concerning who the corporation should chiefly serve. In the 1970s the UK even came close to adopting an ‘industrial democracy’ approach which would have provided for employees representation on large companies’ boards—an approach thwarted, in part, by labour’s belief that it was better protected outside the corporate governance mechanism. Thus, while present UK law may embody a shareholder primacy stance, that stance has not always fitted in with the nation’s broader social and political currents, and could still prove vulnerable to the consequences of economic and demographic changes.