New research project on shareholder activism

We are glad to announce that we’ve launched another research project in cooperation with the experts from Zayed University in UAE.

The title of the research project is “Perspectives and obstacles of the shareholder activism implementation: a comparative analysis of civil and common law systems”. The project will be completed by mid-September.

Shareholder activism is the issue that gains controversial feedback among academic and business circles. The new wave of interest was drawn to the issue in recent years during the so called “shareholder spring”. Worldwide practice and existing legal framework suggest that shareholder activism is majorly developed in Anglo-Saxon countries with a common law system, where individual and institutional investors seem to have more levers of influence on the corporations and boards of directors. On the other hand, despite the widespread point of view, recent research suggests that countries with the civil law system allow more shareholder activism that makes investors less reluctant to influence development of the corporations. Thus the research hypothesis supposes that the common law system forms a better foundation for the existence of the shareholder activism. The main aim of the project is to identify those features of the common law system that create preconditions for the shareholder activism. On the other hand it is worthwhile to study the issue of shareholder activism itself from the position of its pros and cons for the companies. This will allow us to draw another important conclusion concerning the possible positive impact of the shareholder activism in common law and civil law countries.