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Organising the Firm pp 57–74Cite as

Theories of Corporate Law and Corporations: Past Approaches

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Abstract

We can now move on to theories of corporate law. Corporate law belongs to the traditional branches of commercial law in continental Europe. Both the Napoleonic Code de commerce and the German Handelsgesetzbuch address company law issues. Whereas norm-based commercial law is largely untheorised as a much too heterogenic branch of law, there is more discussion on the theoretical foundations of corporate law. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the main theories and explain why they are unsatisfactory. A new theory will be proposed in Chap.8 after analysing corporate governance theory in Chaps.6 and 7.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) pp 1471–1527.

  2. 2.

    Von der Pforten distinguishes between the following characteristics of “something”: (1) Reale, mereologische, raumzeitliche Bestimmung. (2) Kausale Bestimmung. (3) Funktionale Bestimmung. (4) Qualitative Bestimmung. (5) Begriffliche Bestimmung. (6) Sprachlich-semantische Bestimmung. (7) Intentionale Bestimmung. In short: real (something in space and time); causal; functional; qualitative, conceptual, linguistic, and intentional. See von der Pforten D, Was ist Recht? Eine philosophische Perspektive. In: Brugger W, Neumann U, Kirste S (eds), Rechtsphilosophie im 21. Jahrhundert. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main (2008) pp 261–285.

  3. 3.

    Compare Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) p 1474. Bratton distinguishes between “traditional legal theories of the corporate firm”, “managerialism”, and “the new economic theory of the firm”. Traditional legal theories of the corporate firm are here regarded as examples of theories of corporations. Managerialism and the new economic theory of the firm are examples of theories of corporate law.

  4. 4.

    Eisenberg MA, The Structure of the Corporation. Beard Books, Washington, D.C. (1976) p 1. See nevertheless Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) p 1508: “By 1976, traditional theory of the firm concepts had fallen so far from view that theoretically ambitious works on corporate structure omitted any mention of them.”

  5. 5.

    See, for example, Article 530(2) of the Swiss Code of Obligations (OR). If an entity cannot be regarded as a corporation, it is deemed to be a partnership.

  6. 6.

    See Article 150(2) of the Swiss Federal Act on Private International Law (IPRG). See Guillaume F, The Law Governing Companies in Swiss Private International Law. In: Sarcevic P, Volken P, Bonomi A, Yearbook of Private International Law, Volume 6 (2004). Sellier, München / Staempfli Publishers, Berne / Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (2005) pp 253–255.

  7. 7.

    In the US, Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion on the nature of the corporation in the famous corporate law case of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518, 636 (1819) reflects the concession theory: “A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.”

  8. 8.

    Article 208 of Allgemeines Deutsches Handelsgesetzbuch: “Aktiengesellschaften können nur mit staatlicher Genehmigung errichtet werden …” Article 249: “Den Landesgesetzen bleibt vorbehalten, zu bestimmen, daß es der staatlichen Genehmigung zur Errichtung von Aktiengesellschaften im Allgemeinen oder von einzelnen Arten derselben nicht bedarf …”

  9. 9.

    Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) p 1475. See also pp 1483–1484 (for American corporate law’s special charter phase).

  10. 10.

    See, for example, Priester HJ, Beginn der Rechtsperson – Vorräte und Mäntel, ZHR 168 (2004) p 255.

  11. 11.

    The Joint Stock Companies Act of 1844 and the Limited Liability Act of 1855.

  12. 12.

    Hurst JW, The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the Law of the United States 1780–1970. The U P of Virginia, the USA (1970) pp 5–6: “The shift in English policy from a focus upon political considerations to a focus upon economic utility anticipated a much later analogous course of policy in the United States.”

  13. 13.

    Article 10 of Directive 68/151/EEC (First Company Law Directive): “In all Member States whose laws do not provide for preventive control, administrative or judicial, at the time of formation of a company, the instrument of constitution, the company statutes and any amendments to those documents shall be drawn up and certified in due legal form.” Article 3(1): “In each Member State a file shall be opened in a central register, commercial register or companies register, for each of the companies registered therein.” Article 2(1): “Member States shall take the measures required to ensure compulsory disclosure by companies of at least the following documents and particulars: (a) The instrument of constitution, and the statutes if they are contained in a separate instrument …”

  14. 14.

    Bratton WW, op cit, p 1475: “The contractual response locates the source of all firms’ economic energy in individuals. Stated most strongly, this view holds that the individuals’ freedom of contract implies a right to do business as a corporation without state interference. A variant of this discussion suggests that the corporation is not a suitable subject for regulation because its activities have a ‘private’ rather than a ‘public’ nature.”

  15. 15.

    Bergström C, Samuelsson P, Aktiebolagets grundproblem. En rättsekonomisk analys. Nerenius & Santérus Förlag, Stockholm (1997) p 48.

  16. 16.

    Clark RC, Corporate Law. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Mass (1986). For an analysis of Clark’s theory, see Klausner MD, The Contractarian Theory of Corporate Law: A Generation Later, J Corp L 31 (2006) pp 779–797.

  17. 17.

    According to Kraakman et al., the characteristics are: (1) legal personality; (2) limited liability; (3) transferable shares; (4) centralised management under a board structure; and (5) shared ownership by contributors of capital. Kraakman R, Davies P, Hansmann H, Hertig G, Hopt KJ, Kanda H, Rock EB, The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach. OUP, Oxford (2004) p 5.

  18. 18.

    Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) pp 1502–1503: “One definition came from Kent's Commentaries, but had origins going as far back as the writings of Pope Innocent. The second came from Kyd's late eighteenth century British treatise on corporate law. The third was the famous description of the corporation in Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in the Dartmouth College case.”

  19. 19.

    This discussion was relevant even in the US. See Bratton WW, op cit, p 1475: “Here one line of responses holds the corporation to be at most a reification—a construction of the minds of the persons connected with the firm and those who deal with them and their products. A conflicting line holds the corporate firm to be a real thing having an existence, like a spiritual being, apart from the separate existences of the persons connected with it.”

  20. 20.

    See Larenz K, Allgemeiner Teil des deutschen Bürgerlichen Rechts, Ein Lehrbuch. 7. Auflage. Verlag C.H. Beck, München (1988) § 9 I; Teubner G, Enterprise Corporatism: New Industrial Policy and the “Essence” of the Legal Person, Am J Comp L 36 (1988) pp 130–155; Foster NHD, Company Law Theory in Comparative Perspective: England and France, Am J Comp L 48 (2000) pp 573–621; Mäntysaari P, The Law of Corporate Finance. Volume II. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2010) p 193.

  21. 21.

    See also Article 10 of Directive 2009/101/EC, previously Article 9 of Directive 68/151/EEC (First Company Law Directive).

  22. 22.

    One can see evidence of this also in § 3(1)(2) GmbHG and § 23(2)(2) AktG. See, for example, Priester HJ, Beginn der Rechtsperson – Vorräte und Mäntel, ZHR 168 (2004) p 252.

  23. 23.

    Mäntysaari P, Comparative Corporate Governance. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2005) p 363.

  24. 24.

    See Hofstetter K, Parent Responsibility for Subsidiary Corporations: Evaluating European Trends, ICLQ 39 (1990) pp 576–598.

  25. 25.

    Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd [1897] AC 22.

  26. 26.

    Easterbrook and Fischel regard limited liability as the distinguishing figure of corporate law in the US. Easterbrook FH, Fischel DR, The Economic Structure of Corporate Law. Harvard U P, Cambridge, Mass. (1991) p 40. Blair nevertheless provides a very different view. Blair argues: “While [the ability to amass large amounts of capital, limited liability, and the centralization of control] were important in many situations, it was a fourth factor that turned out to be the critical advantage of the corporate form: the ability to commit capital, once amassed, for extended periods of time … [T]he chartering of a corporation legally transformed the business enterprise in ways that would have been impossible or extremely difficult to achieve through … contract law … The first way was that incorporation gave the enterprise ‘entity’ status under the law, and the second was that incorporation required governance rules that legally separated business decisionmaking from contributions of financial capital.” Blair MM, Locking in Capital: What Corporate Law Achieved for Business Organizers in the Nineteenth Century, UCLA L Rev 51 (2003) p 390.

  27. 27.

    See, for example, Mäntysaari P, Comparative Corporate Governance. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2005) p 217.

  28. 28.

    Freund E, The Legal Nature of Corporations. U Chicago P, Chicago (1897) § 6 pp 13–14 (discussing von Gierke’s organic theory).

  29. 29.

    Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) pp 1490–1491 (with references in footnote 90).

  30. 30.

    Ibid, p 1511 commenting on Horwitz MJ, Santa Clara Revisited: The Development of Corporate Theory, W Virginia L Rev 173 (1986) pp 173–224.

  31. 31.

    Ibid, pp 1490–1491; Bainbridge S, Director Primacy: The Means and Ends of Corporate Governance, Northw U L Rev 97 (2003) pp 549 and 561–563. For a critique of the theory, see Dewey J, The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality, Yale L J 35 (1926) p 672: “… the entire discussion of personality, whether of single or corporate personality, is needlessly encumbered with a mass of traditional doctrines and remnants of old issues.”

  32. 32.

    Bratton WW, op cit, p 1512.

  33. 33.

    See Alchian AA, Demsetz H, Production, information costs, and economic organization, Am Econ Rev 62(5) (1972) p 794.

  34. 34.

    See, for example, Großfeld B, Zur Geschichte der Anerkennungsproblematik bei Aktiengesellschaften, RabelsZ 38 (1974) pp 344–371; Zimmer D, Grenzüberschreitende Rechtspersönlichkeit, ZHR 168 (2004) pp 355–368; Roth WH, From Centros to Überseering: Free Movement of Companies, Private International Law, and Community Law, ICLQ 52 (2003) pp 177–208.

  35. 35.

    For the benefits of the real seat doctrine, see Schmidt K, Sitzverlegungsrichtlinie, Freizügigkeit und Gesellschaftsrechtspraxis. Grundlagen, ZGR 1999 pp 23–24.

  36. 36.

    Case C-212/97 Centros [1999] ECR I–459; Case C-208/00 Überseering [2002] ECR I–9919; Case C-167/01 Inspire Art [2003] ECR I–10155; Case C-411/03 SEVIC Systems [2005] ECR I–10805; Case C-196/04 Cadbury Schweppes [2006] ECR I–7995; and the opinion of advocate general Poiares Maduro in Case C-2010/06 Cartesio.

  37. 37.

    Articles 49 and 54 TFEU.

  38. 38.

    Fleischer describes one such case. Fleischer H, Supranational Corporate Forms in the European Union: Prolegomena to a Theory on Supranational Forms of Association, CMLR 47 (2010) p 1704: “Article 1(2) EEIG Regulation grants legal personality … to the EEIG, while Article 1(3) leaves it up to each Member State to decide whether or not groups registered there will have legal personality. In most Member States – the marked exceptions being Germany and Italy – the EEIG is a legal person, although in the United Kingdom it is generically classified as a body corporate.” For the German version of this paper, see Fleischer H, ZHR 174 (2010) pp 385–428.

  39. 39.

    Ashbury Railway Carriage and Iron Co Ltd v Riche (1875) LR 7 (House of Lords) 653.

  40. 40.

    Originally Article 9 of Directive 68/151/EEC (First Company Law Directive), now Article 10 of Directive 2009/101/EC.

  41. 41.

    Section 31(1) of Companies Act 2006: “Unless a company’s articles specifically restrict the objects of the company, its objects are unrestricted.” Section 39(1): “The validity of an act done by a company shall not be called into question on the ground of lack of capacity by reason of anything in the company’s constitution.” The doctrine’s relevance was reduced already by section 35A of the Companies Act 1985 inserted by the Company Act 1989.

  42. 42.

    § 3.01(a) of the Revised Model Business Corporation Act: “Every corporation incorporated under this Act has the purpose of engaging in any lawful business unless a more limited purpose is set forth in the articles of incorporation.” Compare this with Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in the famous corporate law case of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518, 636 (1819) on the nature of the corporation: “Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.”

  43. 43.

    Zimmer D, Internationales Gesellschaftsrecht. Schriftenreihe Recht der Internationalen Wirtschaft. Band 50. Verlag Recht und Wirtschaft GmbH, Heidelberg (1996), Dritter Teil C I 1 b at pp 243–244.

  44. 44.

    § 239 HGB 1897 and § 246 HGB 1897. There were exemptions for small companies – GmbH – combined with restrictions on the transferability of shares and an increased liability of shareholders. See, for example, Cosack K, Lehrbuch des Handelsrechts. Sechste Auflage. Verlag von Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart (1903) § 122.

  45. 45.

    Rathenau W, Vom Aktienwesen. Eine geschäftliche Betrachtung. Berlin (1917) p 13; Riechers A, Das “Unternehmen an sich”. Die Entwicklung eines Begriffes in der Aktienrechtsdiskussion des 20. Jahrhunderts. Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts 17. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen (1996); Laux F, Die Lehre vom Unternehmen an sich. Walther Rathenau und die aktienrechtliche Diskussion in der Weimarer Republik. Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte RG 74. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin (1998) p 7.

  46. 46.

    Brandeis LD, On Industrial Relations (testimony before the United States Commission on Industrial relations, January 23, 1915, see Bruner CM, The Enduring Ambivalence of Corporate Law, Alabama L Rev 59 (2008) p 1390); Veblen T, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America. B.W. Huebsch, New York (1923); Riechers A, op cit, p 183.

  47. 47.

    Berle AA, Means GC, The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey (1968). Originally published in 1932. See also Mark Roe, Strong Managers, Weak Owners (1994). According to Roe, the emergence of dispersed share ownership was not entirely dictated by economics.

  48. 48.

    Eisenberg MA, The Structure of the Corporation. Beard Books, Washington, D.C. (1976) pp 12–13, 16.

  49. 49.

    Ibid, p 33.

  50. 50.

    Ibid, pp 34–36.

  51. 51.

    Ibid, pp 162–170.

  52. 52.

    Ibid, pp 172–185.

  53. 53.

    Fleischer H, Supranational Corporate Forms in the European Union: Prolegomena to a Theory on Supranational Forms of Association, CMLR 47 (2010) pp 1680–1681 citing, in particular, Marty G, Les Sociétés Internationales, RabelsZ 27 (1962) pp 73–88; Wiedemann H, Gesellschaftsrecht. Vol. I. C.H. Beck, München (1980), § 15 IV p 881.

  54. 54.

    Regulation 2137/85 (EEIG Regulation).

  55. 55.

    Regulation 2157/2001 (SE Regulation).

  56. 56.

    Regulation 1435/2003 (SCE Regulation).

  57. 57.

    Commission, Proposal for a Council Regulation on the Statute for a European private company, COM(2008) 396 final. See, for example, Bormann J, König DC, Der Weg zur Europäischen Privatgesellschaft, RIW 3/2010 pp 111–119; Teichmann C, Die Societas Privata Europaea (SPE) als ausländische Tochtergesellschaft, RIW 3/2010 pp 120–127.

  58. 58.

    Fleischer H, Supranational Corporate Forms in the European Union: Prolegomena to a Theory on Supranational Forms of Association, CMLR 47 (2010) p 1717: “As far as the interaction of supranational and national law is concerned, two types of legislative techniques may be distinguished: the referential model (paradigm: the SE Regulation) and the complete statute (paradigm: the draft SPE Regulation).”

  59. 59.

    Ibid, p 1717 (on a theory of European supranational corporate forms): “Some distinguishing features which may play a role in furthering the doctrinal assessment of European corporate law are: legal personality; corporate purpose and company object; cross-border involvement; registered and head offices; and company members from third countries.”

  60. 60.

    See, for example, Bruner CM, The Enduring Ambivalence of Corporate Law, Alabama L Rev 59 (2008) p 1396.

  61. 61.

    See already Berle AA, Means GC, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932), Chapter IV.

  62. 62.

    Section 33 of the Companies Act 2006; section 14 of the Companies Act 1985. See also Mäntysaari P, Comparative Corporate Governance. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2005) pp 105–113.

  63. 63.

    See Berle AA, Means GC, op cit, Book Two, Chapter I.

  64. 64.

    Bratton WW, The New Economic Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives from History, Stanford L Rev 41 (1989) p 1513.

  65. 65.

    See Fama EF, Jensen MC, Separation of Ownership and Control, J Law Econ 26 (1983) pp 301–325.

  66. 66.

    Bratton WW, op cit, p 1473.

  67. 67.

    See also ibid, p 1517: “While the doctrinal theory always takes cognizance of contractual elements, it never makes contract the essence. The doctrinal theory balances contract against the corporate entity and a sovereign presence … Selection of the applicable theoretical paradigm—managerialist or contractual—will occur in the particular context as a quasi-political decision.”

  68. 68.

    See Easterbrook FH, Fischel DR, The Economic Structure of Corporate Law. Harvard U P, Cambridge, Mass. (1991) p 15.

  69. 69.

    Armour J, Whincop MJ, The Proprietary Foundations of Corporate Law, OJLS 27 (2007) pp 429–465 (http://ssrn.com/abstract=1150625).

  70. 70.

    See Clark RC, Corporate Law. Little, Brown & Co, Boston, Mass. (1986); Clark RC, Contracts, Elites, and Traditions in the Making of Corporate Law, Columbia L Rev 89 (1989) pp 1703–1747; Klausner MD, The Contractarian Theory of Corporate Law: A Generation Later, J Corp L 31 (2006) pp 779–797.

  71. 71.

    See also Bratton WW, op cit, p 1513: “This absolute contractualism makes problematic the new theory's practical application in the law.” See also p 1517: “Contractual notions will be entertained, but any move to foreclose wider discussion by the assertion that contract should govern as a function of the intrinsic nature of the corporation will fail.”

  72. 72.

    Demsetz H, The Structure of Ownership and the Theory of the Firm, J Law Econ 26(2) (1983) p 377; Easterbrook FH, Fischel DR, The Economic Structure of Corporate Law. Harvard U P, Cambridge, Mass. (1991) pp 15–16.

  73. 73.

    Klausner MD, The Contractarian Theory of Corporate Law: A Generation Later, J Corp L 31 (2006) p 785. The scope of “corporate law” or “company law” can also have normative implications. See, for example, Case C–167/01 Inspire Art [2003] ECR I–10155, paragraph 138; Article 1(2)(f) of Regulation 593/2008 (Rome I).

  74. 74.

    Malmendier U, Roman Shares. In: Goetzmann WN, Rouwenhorst KG (eds), op cit, p 32: “While the idea of offering shares in enterprises may date back further, most papers and monographs on the history of the corporation identify the East and West India Companies, which emerged during the early seventeenth century as the world’s first business corporations … I argue that over two thousand years earlier the Roman societas publicanorum, or ‘society of publicans’ anticipated the modern corporation and, in particular, the use of fungible shares with limited liability.”

  75. 75.

    Wilson R, On the Theory of Syndicates, Econometrica 36 (1968) pp 119–132; Arrow KJ, Essays in the Theory of Risk-Bearing. Markham Publishing Co., Chicago (1971); Ross SA, The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem, Am Econ Rev 63(2) (1973) pp 134–139; Jensen MC, Meckling WH, Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure, J Fin Econ 3 (1976) pp 305–360.

  76. 76.

    Bergström C, Samuelsson P, Aktiebolagets grundproblem. En rättsekonomisk analys. Nerenius & Santérus Förlag, Stockholm (1997).

  77. 77.

    Kraakman R, Davies P, Hansmann H, Hertig G, Hopt KJ, Kanda H, Rock EB, The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach. OUP, Oxford (2004) p 23.

  78. 78.

    See Skeel DA Jr., Corporate Anatomy Lessons, Yale L J 113 (2004) pp 1519–1577; Wiedemann H, Auf der Suche nach den Strukturen der Aktiengesellschaft. The Anatomy of Corporate Law, ZGR 2006 pp 240–258.

  79. 79.

    Kraakman R, Davies P, Hansmann H, Hertig G, Hopt KJ, Kanda H, Rock EB, op cit, pp 1–2: “These characteristics are … induced by the economic exigencies of the large modern business enterprise. Thus, corporate law everywhere must, of necessity, provide for them. To be sure, there are other forms of business enterprise that lack one or more of these characteristics. But … almost all large-scale business forms adopt a legal form that possesses all five of the basic characteristics … Self-evidently, a principal function of corporate law is to provide business enterprises with a legal form that possesses these five core attributes.” Kraakman et al. nevertheless fail to explain why the limited-liability company has its basic legal characteristics. See also Williamson OE, The Modern Corporation: Origins, Evolution, Attributes, J Econ Lit 19 (1981) pp 1538–1539 (on the focus of the essay): “Key legal features of the corporation – limited liability and the transferability of ownership – are taken as given. Failure to discuss these does not reflect a judgment that these are either irrelevant or uninteresting. The main focus of this essay, however, is on the internal organization of the corporation.”

  80. 80.

    Skeel DA, Jr., Corporate Anatomy Lessons, Yale L J 113 (2004) pp 1543–1544.

  81. 81.

    An example of this approach is Keay A, Ascertaining The Corporate Objective: An Entity Maximisation and Sustainability Model, MLR 71(5) (2008) pp 676–677.

  82. 82.

    Like Berle AA, Property, Production and Revolution. A Preface to the Revised Edition. In: Berle AA, Means GC, op cit.

  83. 83.

    Demsetz H, The Structure of Ownership and the Theory of the Firm, J Law Econ 26(2) (1983) p 377.

  84. 84.

    For a landmark case in English company law, see Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd [1897] AC 22.

  85. 85.

    Easterbrook FH, Fischel DR, op cit, p 40.

  86. 86.

    For example, they have very different political interests. See Bebchuk LA, Jackson RJ, Corporate Political Speech: Who Decides? Harv L Rev 124 (2010) pp 83–117.

  87. 87.

    Blair MM, Stout LA, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Virginia L Rev 85 (1999) pp 247–328; Blair MM, Locking In Capital: What Corporate Law Achieved for Business Organizers in the Nineteenth Century, UCLA L Rev 51(2) (2003) pp 433–434; Holmström B, Moral Hazard in Teams, Bell J Econ 13(2) (1982) pp 324–340.

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Mäntysaari, P. (2012). Theories of Corporate Law and Corporations: Past Approaches. In: Organising the Firm. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22197-2_5

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