The requirement of consent for the transfer of shares and freedoms of movement : toward the liberalization of private limited liability companies : a comparative study of the laws of Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States and its interplay with EU law

Abstract

Toward the Liberalization of Private Limited Companies – A comparative study of the laws of Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States and its interplay with EU law’, I try to shed light on the dynamics of private limited liability companies (PLLCs), and how they can be legally designed to become efficient units of economic development in Europe and the United States. I take a social sciences approach to the legal question: How does the design of clauses establishing restrictions on transfer of shares of private limited liability companies affect investment made in these companies and their consequent development? To answer this question, I develop two parallel lines of investigation. First, I undertake an embedded historical study to trace the evolutionary patterns of PLLCs in six countries. Furthermore, I longitudinally track the standards of behavior of market agents in the selected jurisdictions. Second, I develop my legal research by looking at an anomaly regarding the transfer of shares and changes in the ownership structure of these business organizations. Transfer of shares in PLLCs is, for the most part, regulated by default rules which impose restrictions on transfers. Typically, the parties do not contract around these default rules. The anomaly lies in the fact that, even though shareholders of these companies do not opt out of these rules, shareholders often ignore them and/or breach them at a later stage.