Director versus Shareholder Primacy in New Zealand Company Law as Compared to U.S.A. Corporate Law

28 Pages Posted: 27 Mar 2014 Last revised: 29 May 2014

See all articles by Stephen M. Bainbridge

Stephen M. Bainbridge

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law

Date Written: March 26, 2014

Abstract

Any model of corporate governance must answer two basic sets of questions: (1) Who decides? In other words, when push comes to shove, who has ultimate control? (2) Whose interests prevail? When the ultimate decision maker is presented with a zero sum game, in which it must prefer the interests of one constituency class over those of all others, whose interests prevail?

On the means question, prior scholarship has almost uniformly favored either shareholder primacy or managerialism. On the ends question, prior scholarship has tended to favor either shareholder primacy or various stakeholder theories. In contrast, this author has proposed a “director primacy” model in which the board of directors is the ultimate decision maker but is required to evaluate decisions using shareholder wealth maximization as the governing normative rule.

Shareholder primacy is widely assumed to be a defining characteristic of New Zealand company law. In assessing that assumption, it is essential to distinguish between the means and ends of corporate governance. As to the latter, New Zealand law does establish shareholder wealth maximization as the corporate objective. As to the former, despite assigning managerial authority to the board of directors, New Zealand company law gives shareholders significant control rights.

Comparing New Zealand company law to the considerably more board-centric regime of U.S. corporate law raises a critical policy issue. If the separation of ownership and control mandated by the latter has significant efficiency advantages, as this article has argued, why has New Zealand opted for a more shareholder-centric model? The most plausible explanation focuses on domain issues, which suggest that there are a small number of New Zealand firms for which director primacy would be optimal. The unitary nature of the New Zealand government may also be a factor, because the competitive federalism inherent in the U.S. system of government promotes a race to the top in which efficient corporate law rules are favored.

Keywords: shareholder primacy, director primacy, New Zealand, corporate law, company law

JEL Classification: K22

Suggested Citation

Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, Director versus Shareholder Primacy in New Zealand Company Law as Compared to U.S.A. Corporate Law (March 26, 2014). UCLA School of Law, Law-Econ Research Paper No. 14-05, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2416449

Stephen Mark Bainbridge (Contact Author)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law ( email )

385 Charles E. Young Dr. East
Room 1242
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1476
United States
310-206-1599 (Phone)
310-825-6023 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.professorbainbridge.com

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
694
Abstract Views
3,986
Rank
68,912
PlumX Metrics