It has generally been maintained that UK companies embrace a shareholder value approach. But some commentators have challenged that view. This article documents an attempt to ascertain the actual position in UK companies by an analysis of the position taken concerning corporate objective by 50 of the largest companies in the UK. The research consists of an examination of the public documents of these companies, namely those that could be accessed from the companies' websites, and the primary document considered was the company's most recent Annual Report. The study found that companies could be divided into three groups with one group consisting of 36% of the companies considered, stating that they have shareholder value as their ultimate goal. But, critically, it also found that most of these companies indicated that non-shareholding stakeholders were important to them.

The dualism between private and public enforcement of investor-related rights and its influence on the development of capital markets has been the subject of much recent commentary. While opinions differ as regards preference for private or public enforcement, scholarly analysis has so far been focused on the principal-agent relationship between investors and issuers, and has tried to depict the most effective enforcement system from a deterrence perspective. In this article we present some data about the Italian experience of enforcement. Rather than of lawsuits against issuers or gatekeepers, investor protection in Italy is mostly the result of proceedings brought by individuals against investment services providers. Does such a model promote the public goals of securities regulation? Is it efficient? By answering these questions, we aim to show how the Italian experience may contribute to the international debate on the enforcement of securities regulation.

This paper explores the relationship between disclosure in securities markets and the firm's need for confidentiality. Transparency plays a crucial role for both investor protection and the proper functioning of financial markets. Confidentiality protects the value of information which has been costly produced by the company and preserves private incentives for business and technological innovation. The requirement of too detailed or early disclosure in securities markets, even when aimed at greater investor protection and enhanced market efficiency, would be ultimately detrimental since it would hinder the firm's competitive capacity and weaken the system of private incentives for innovation. EU mandatory disclosure rules protect the firm's interest in confidentiality and allow public companies to refrain from – or delay – the release of the most sensitive data. The scope of these safe harbours, however, is narrow and always at risk of excessive restriction by the powers of regulatory agencies. Furthermore, when information with competitive value is concurrently significant for investors, refraining from disclosure – no matter if allowed or not by the law – hampers the firm's capacity to raise finance and makes the process of resource allocation less efficient. Selective disclosure reconciles investors' demand for information and the firm's need for confidentiality since it allows market prices to react to the information whilst also bypassing the need for public release of the relevant contents. Reconciling the tension, in turn, constitutes a desirable outcome: the securities market will be more efficient and raising finance will become less costly, especially for the most ‘secrecy sensitive’ projects. At the same time, the system of private incentives for innovation will be fully preserved.

In November 2011, the European Commission published legislative drafts proposing radical reforms for statutory audits in Europe, fuelling heated political and academic debates. This paper presents cornerstones for a new regulatory framework of auditing and thereby contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of auditors and their independence.

Innovation and R&D are important to economic growth. One argued way to encourage innovation is through government support for venture funds. This might be especially important in countries that lack a developed venture capital (VC) sector. However, some papers have suggested that this government backing might ‘crowd out’ purely private sector funds and might undermine innovation creation. Thus, I examine the use of a scheme in Australia (the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) scheme). I focus on Australia because unlike many low innovation countries, it has strong legal foundations, enabling a cleaner look at the impact of government backing. I argue that Australia's scheme is well structured. I then show that while Australia has relatively low levels of VC and innovation compared with other countries, its VC activity scaled by GDP has grown following the inception of the IIF scheme, particularly increasing after 2001. The policy implication is that properly structured government support for VC funds can stimulate innovation and VC activity.

This paper analyses the new Portuguese legal system of no par value shares – recently introduced in Portugal by Decree Law 49/2010, published on 19 May – as well as the main reason for this legal solution: to make corporate financing in the stock market more flexible.

The development of modern Serbian competition law started in 2005 with the adoption of the Competition Act laying down rules which were generally inspired by European Union law. As is usually the case in countries in transition, the 2005 Competition Act was soon replaced by a new one, adopted in 2009. The 2009 Act further harmonised substantive competition rules with those of the EU, while at the same time empowering the Competition Authority to directly impose fines for infringements of competition law. Although it is evident that the public authorities of Serbia made certain efforts to improve competition law enforcement, it still cannot be concluded that significant progress has been made. In this paper, the authors analyse specific problems which appeared throughout six years of competition law enforcement in Serbia. Some of the problems analysed are so-called built-in errors, arising as a consequence of the choices made by the legislator. Others are, however, the result of wrongful doing by the members of the Competition Authority. Taken as a whole, they represent the main reason for the poor results achieved through competition law enforcement in Serbia. The first problem analysed is that of wrong priorities: the Competition Authority has mostly concentrated on the control of concentrations of undertakings, while generally ignoring restrictions of competition through the conclusion of anti-competitive agreements or through abuse of a dominant position. The second problem emphasised by the authors is the absence of sound economic analysis in most decisions adopted by the Competition Authority. The fining policy of the Competition Authority is also analysed in in this paper. While no fines have been imposed under the 2005 Competition Act, the Competition Authority seems to be trying to ‘catch up’ by imposing fines under the 2009 Act for infringements established in proceedings brought under the 2005 Act. The authors argue that this should be seen as an illegal retroactive application of law. The fourth problem in the enforcement of competition law in Serbia arises from a de facto privileged treatment of undertakings with state-owned capital.