Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

After years of relative isolation as a primarily U.S. and British phenomenon, shareholder activism has finally shown signs of going global. Particularly in European companies, shareholders are beginning to reject their traditionally passive roles and are engaging corporate managements about such issues as "lack of corporate transparency, low dividend payouts, voting-rights restrictions and the absence of stock incentives for management."' Further, while no small amount of the activist initiative comes from U.S. institutional investors, "European institutional investors are themselves taking a second look at the governance of their corporate investments, often joining forces with local shareholder groups and assorted corporate gadflies." 2 The hostile takeover has also made a world-wide entrance. Like shareholder activism, the trend is most prominent in Europe where "[t]he risky tactic of a hostile takeover has become much more common in continental European countries in the past two years and their prevalence is only like[ly] to increase."

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