Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:27:53.013Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Global Markets and National Regulation: The Protection of Shareholder Interests in Germany and Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Dermot McCann
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Global market integration is widely perceived as presenting a major challenge to the sustainability of many national economic regulatory systems. There is far less agreement, however, about precisely how these pressures feed into the politics of reform and reshape national public policy. This article will seek to cast light on this relationship by identifying four influential ‘models of linkage’ between global pressures and regulatory change. It will then comparatively assess their capacity to elucidate the progress of shareholder protection reform in Germany and Italy. While no single model proves fully satisfactory, it will be argued that the weaknesses of two of them can be largely overcome through a process of refinement and integration.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , 2007 , pp. 73 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See H. Hansmann and R. Kraakman, ‘Towards a Single Model of Corporate Law?’, in J. A. McCahery, P. Moreland, T. Raajimakers and L. Renneboog (eds), Corporate Governance Regimes: Convergence and Diversity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 56–82; J. Grahl, ‘Globalised Finance’, New Left Review (March/April 2001), pp. 23–47.Google Scholar

2 Hansmann and Kraakman, ‘Towards a Single Model of Corporate Law?’, p. 58.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 66.Google Scholar

4 M. Bianco, C. Gola and L. F. Signorini, Dealing with Separation Between Ownership and Control: State, Family, Coalitions and Pyramidal Groups in Italian Corporate Governance, Nota di Lavoro, Milan, Enrico Mattei, 1996, p. 13.Google Scholar

5 J. Frieden and R. Rogowski, ‘The Impact of the International Economy on National Policies: An Analytical Overview’, in R. Keohane and H. Milner (eds), Internationalization and Domestic Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 25–47.Google Scholar

6 See, for example, G. Garrett and P. Lange, ‘Internationalization, Institutions and Political Change’, in Milner and Keohane, Internationalization and Domestic Politics, pp. 48–78.Google Scholar

7 P. Gourevitch, ‘Corporate Governance: Global Markets, National Politics’, in M. Kahler and D. Lake (eds), Governance in a Global Economy, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 305–31, p. 319.Google Scholar

8 P. Hall and D. Soskice (eds), Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Advantage of Comparative Advantage, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar

9 Gourevitch, P., ‘The Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation’, Yale Law Journal, 112: 7 (May 2003), pp. 1829–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 1855.

10 S. Wood, ‘Business, Government, and Patterns of Labour Policy in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Hall and Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism, pp. 247–74.Google Scholar

11 J. Shinn and P. Gourevitch, How Shareholder Reform Can Pay Foreign Policy Dividends, New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 2002. Shinn has developed these ideas more fully in an unpublished paper, ‘Private Profit or Public Purpose?: Shallow Convergence on the Shareholder Model’.Google Scholar

12 Ibid.Google Scholar

13 M. Roe, Political Determinants of Corporate Governance, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar

14 J. Cioffi, Restructuring ‘Germany Inc.’: The Politics of Company and Takeover Law Reform in Germany and the European Union, Working Paper PEIF-1, Institute of European Studies, University of California, 2002, p. 25.Google Scholar

15 J. N. Gordon, An International Relations Perspective on the Convergence of Corporate Governance: German Shareholder Capitalism and the European Union, 1990–2000, Working Paper No. 108, Frankfurt am Main, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, 2002.Google Scholar

16 Cioffi, Restructuring ‘Germany Inc.’, p. 8.Google Scholar

17 Beyer, J. and Hoepner, M., ‘The Disintegration of Organised Capitalism: German Corporate Governance in the 1990s’, West European Politics, 26: 4 (2003), pp. 178–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 J, Nicholas Ziegler, ‘Corporate Governance in Germany: Towards a New Transnational Politics?’, in S. Weber, Globalization and the European Political Economy, Columbia, Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 197–228, p. 216.Google Scholar

19 Borsch, A., ‘Globalisation, Shareholder Value, Restructuring: The (Non)-Transformation of Siemens’, New Political Economy, 9: 3 (2004), pp. 367–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 381.

20 Vogel, S. K., ‘The Crisis of German and Japanese Capitalism: Stalled on the Road to the Liberal Market Model’, Comparative Political Studies, 34: 10 (2002), p. 1114.Google Scholar

21 M. Hoepner, European Corporate Governance Reform and the German Party Paradox, MPIfG Discussion Paper 3/04, Cologne, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, 2003, p. 19.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., p. 24.Google Scholar

23 Vogel, ‘The Crisis of German and Japanese Capitalism’, p. 1114.Google Scholar

24 Hoepner, European Corporate Governance Reform, p. 31.Google Scholar

25 Hansmann and Kraakman, ‘Towards a Single Model of Corporate Law?’, p. 67.Google Scholar

26 Gordon, An International Relations Perspective, p. 52.Google Scholar

27 Portolano, A., ‘The Decision to Adopt Defensive Tactics in Italy’, International Review of Law and Economics, 20 (2002), pp. 425–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Though there is some indication that the use of the pyramiding has declined slightly in recent years. See M. Bianchi, M. Bianco, and L. Enriques, ‘Pyramidal Groups and the Separation of Ownership and Control in Italy’, in F. Barca and M. Becht (eds), The Control of Corporate Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 154–87.Google Scholar

29 U. Inzerillo and M. Messori, ‘Le privatizzazioni bancarie in Italia’, in S. Nardis (ed.), Le privatizzazioni italiane, Bologna, il Mulino, 2000, p. 173.Google Scholar

30 Ibid. p. 173.Google Scholar

31 See, for example, G. Visentini, ‘Il Governo dell’economia sfugge al mercato’, Il Sole24Ore, 17 February 2003.Google Scholar

32 Inzerillo and Messori, ‘Le privatizzazioni bancarie in Italia’, p. 180.Google Scholar

33 Mediobanca's remarkable manoeuvres to regain control of the privatized Banca Commerciale Italiana and Comit offer a prime example of this phenomenon. See S. Siglenti, Una Privatizzazione molto privata: Stato, mercato e gruppi industriali: il caso Comit, Milan, Mondadori, 1996.Google Scholar

34 La Repubblica, 22 March 1999.Google Scholar

35 Massimo D’Alema, quoted in F. Rampani, ‘D’Alema E I Nuovi Capitalisti’, La Repubblica, 22 January 1999.Google Scholar

36 ‘Berlusconi's Burden: Italy's Economy Languishes and Reforms Have Stalled’, Financial Times, 25 May 2004.Google Scholar

37 Indicative of the difficulty of regulatory reform is the controversy about changing the Bank of Italy's supervisory role. There is a widespread perception that the proposals are partly motivated by the desire of politicians to reestablish control over the banking sector. Leading figures in the banking industry are prepared to go on the record with such concerns. See, for example, the statements of Giovanni Bazoli, the president of Banca Intesa, La Repubblica, 1 June 2004.Google Scholar

38 Beyer and Hoepner, ‘The Disintegration of Organised Capitalism’.Google Scholar

39 Hoepner, European Corporate Governance Reform.Google Scholar