Sandrelli, Giulio; Ventoruzzo, Marco --- "Classes of shares and voting rights in the history of Italian corporate law" [2018] ELECD 75; in Wells, Harwell (ed), "Research Handbook on the History of Corporate and Company Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 269

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

Editor(s): Wells, Harwell

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781784717650

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Classes of shares and voting rights in the history of Italian corporate law

Author(s): Sandrelli, Giulio; Ventoruzzo, Marco

Number of pages: 29

Abstract/Description:

Chapter 10 examines the evolution of modern Italian corporate law by focusing on share classes and voting rights. From a variegated voting and class system in the nineteenth century, the authors show convergence during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century towards a one-share, one-vote norm, followed later in the century by a countercurrent marked by increased flexibility in voting arrangements and eventual elimination of a ban on multiple voting shares. Along the way the authors demonstrate that these developments were not only produced by internal dynamics of corporation law but by larger national and international developments—‘competition among European jurisdictions, circulation of legal models internationally, … a growing faith in market efficiency and [in] the ability of contractual freedom to adopt the most efficient solution’.