Agency costs in the shadow of the European Stock Exchanges: a comparative assessment of the British and Italian Law on Related Party Transactions and on Corporate Opportunities
2012
This article proposes a comparison between the UK and the Italian rules on Related Parties Transactions. The differences found in the aforementioned systems may reveal complementarities with their ownership structure, both from a qualitative and quantitative point of view. However, the two set of norms are also the products of different underlying logics. Italian rules look adaptable to the needs and features of each company, whereas British rules look more rigid. The sophistication of recently adopted Italian rules potentially allows a dramatic reduction of transaction costs connected to the lacks in disclosure of business information and to mistakes in their assessment. However, such sophistication may well increase legal contracting costs. Our comparison shows as there may be trade-offs between certain categories of transaction costs, which can be reduced through sophisticated legal provisions, and other categories such as those related to legal consulting, which may well be increased precisely as a consequence of legal sophistication. Whereas the task of finding the right equilibrium between different sources of transaction costs may be approached in different ways by different legislators, deterrence may be definitely obtained in a more straightforward way. In this regards the British system still looks comparatively more efficient than the Italian one.
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