Andreas Cahn - Böcker

When comparing the laws of different jurisdictions, one often sees only the forest or the trees. This is particularly problematic in comparative company law, where students hope both to understand the overall framework of the law and grasp its practical application. This text's structure, now in its second edition, solves that dilemma. Chapters open with discursive analyses of the law in each of Germany, the UK and the US (Delaware, the ABA Model Business Corporation Act, and federal securities laws) and set out the high-level governing framework, particularly for the EU and its member states. This analysis is succinct and pointed, with numerous references to both the law and leading scholarship. The whole text is arranged to highlight comparative aspects. Diagrams are used where helpful. Chapters close with edited judicial decisions from at least two of the jurisdictions discussed, which allows fresh exploration of comparison in more detail, and pointed questions to guide class discussion.

When comparing the laws of different jurisdictions, one often sees only the forest or the trees. This is particularly problematic in comparative company law, where students hope both to understand the overall framework of the law and grasp its practical application. This text's structure, now in its second edition, solves that dilemma. Chapters open with discursive analyses of the law in each of Germany, the UK and the US (Delaware, the ABA Model Business Corporation Act, and federal securities laws) and set out the high-level governing framework, particularly for the EU and its member states. This analysis is succinct and pointed, with numerous references to both the law and leading scholarship. The whole text is arranged to highlight comparative aspects. Diagrams are used where helpful. Chapters close with edited judicial decisions from at least two of the jurisdictions discussed, which allows fresh exploration of comparison in more detail, and pointed questions to guide class discussion.

The volume contains articles based on presentations given at a conference hosted by the Institute for Law and Finance of Goethe University on October 27, 2011. Collective action clauses are an example of the typical dichotomy of financial regulation: While the problems are economic in nature, the solutions need to be implemented by law. The Institute for Law and Finance strives to bring together law and finance in order to foster a better mutual understanding of both disciplines and to improve the regulation of financial markets. Thus, the organizers are particularly pleased that eminent experts from the fields of law and finance agreed to participate in the event and to share their views on and experiences with collective action clauses. The presentations given at the conference have been updated in 2012 to reflect recent developments.

The number of hedge funds and the assets they have under management has increased in recent years. This increase became significantly more pronounced after the market downturn in 2001. Hedge funds can help investors to benefit from volatile and even sinking stock markets. However, despite the prominent use of the word "hedge" in their name, such funds rarely offer a safe hedge against risk, given that they depend heavily on skill-based investment techniques and often invest in highly speculative financial instruments. Nevertheless, such funds received no specific treatment in the legislation of such major markets as Germany and the United States for years.Against the backdrop of international regulatory concern for hedge funds, the Institute for Law and Finance (ILF), in cooperation with Deutsches Aktieninstitut e.V. (DAI), brought together leading scholars, lawyers and bankers, to assess the risks, opportunities and regulatory challenges that hedge funds present. At the time of the conference, German lawmakers were still discussing the need and possible content of a new law. The fruit of their discussions was the German Investment-Modernization Act (Investmentmodernisierungsgesetz), which entered into force on January 1, 2004, and increased the attractiveness of offering hedge fund products in the German market.This inaugural volume of the Institute for Law and Finance Series contains the proceedings of the ILF/DAI May 2003 conference entitled "Hedge Funds: Risks and Regulation", and presents papers discussing the economic characteristics of and regulatory strategies for addressing hedge funds. The first two papers examine hedge funds from an economic perspective. Alexander M. Ineichen, Managing Director and Global Head of AIS Research at UBS, reveals the economic reality of hedge funds from the myths that has surrounded them. Then Franklin R. Edwards, Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Futures Markets of the Columbia Business School in New York explains how the regulation of hedge funds should be tailored to their core economic reality and the goals of financial stability and investor protection. Next, Marcia L. MacHarg, a partner of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Ashley Kovas, a Manager in the Business Standards Department of the Financial Services Authority, London, and Edgar Wallach, a partner of Hengeler Mueller, present the state of the relevant regulatory structures in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, respectively. The book then closes with an analysis of corporate structures used for German hedge funds, offered by Kai-Uwe Steck, a member of the German Asset Management practice group of Shearman & Sterling LLP.

[The European Stock Corporation. Implementation questions and perspectives]In October 2004 the European stock corporation, or Societas Europaea (S.E.), has been made available in the EU as a European form of company. The discussion concerning a European stock corporation harks back to the 1950's. Then, in 2001, a surprising accord was reached after various failed attempts to establish a standard European stock corporation.However, in many partially decisive areas this accord was only able to be reached through extensive compromises. That's why it's feared that there will not be a standard form of stock corporation, but rather a multitude of nationally characterized and partially quite different European stock corporations. The conference arranged by the "foundational guest lecture series for international banking law" should provide insights from a comparative legal standpoint into the status and content of the implementation efforts in the relevant member nations of the EU. The volume at hand reproduces the lectures held at the conference.

["The reform of the law on bonds"]In the past few years, the financing instrument "bonds" was gaining considerable importance on the German capital market, not least because of declining prices on the share market and the lowering of key interest rates by the ECB. On an international level, the German bond market comes in third world-wide behind the American and Japanese markets.The German law on bonds, however, is less popular than the German market. The prevailing German law on bonds is largely codified in the 1899 law on common rights of bond owners. The age of a law is certainly no indication of its quality. However, the law on bonds, particularly, does not meet the practical requirements of a great number of issues and is therefore hardly ever applied. In this respect, Germany is definitely posed to fall behind in the competition between the legal systems.The present volume includes the lectures of a conference on reforming the law on bonds organized by the ILF on 5 February 2004. The Federal government's plan to completely revise the law on bonds was the impetus for this conference. The present contributions aim at being part of the reform discussion and provide suggestions for organizing the future law from the point of view of both the German practice and the foreign legal systems that are most important with respect to bonds.

This volume contains the contributions from the convention “The Future of Clearing and Settlement”, which the ILF staged on June 27, 2005, at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. The first part of the convention was devoted to selected questions about deposit and company law regarding securities safekeeping in the media, including possible alternatives to the applicable law and a comparative law look at Switzerland. At the same time, the analysis of the legal foundation for clearing and settlement offered the opportunity to put the market models for securities settlement, which are actively discussed at present, to the test in the second part of the convention.