Corporation and Contract

23 Pages Posted: 29 Mar 2006

See all articles by Henry Hansmann

Henry Hansmann

Yale University - Law School; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 2006

Abstract

Publicly traded corporations rarely use the nearly absolute freedom afforded them to draft charters that deviate from the default terms of state corporation law. Conventional explanations for this phenomenon are unconvincing. A more plausible reason lies in the lack of any feasible amendment mechanism that will assure efficient adaptation of charter terms as changing circumstances dictate during the long expected lifetime of a public corporation. In effect, by adopting state law default terms, corporate shareholders and managers delegate to a third party - the state - the process of amending charter provisions over time. This theory provides much stronger reason for deferring to the law's default rules than do the other theories that have been offered. It implies that default rules may often be nearly as influential as mandatory rules, and that scholars are not wasting their time debating whether one rule of corporate law is more desirable than another even if, as is typical, the rule chosen will be formulated only as a default. This theory also suggests that it might be beneficial if leading corporate law jurisdictions were to provide greater choice among default terms than they currently do.

Suggested Citation

Hansmann, Henry, Corporation and Contract (March 2006). ECGI - Law Working Paper No. 66/2006, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=892830 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.892830

Henry Hansmann (Contact Author)

Yale University - Law School ( email )

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United States
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European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
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Belgium

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