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The paper aims to discuss the amended provisions relating to protection of minority shareholders (PMS) in the newly amended Chinese Company Law and evaluate whether it adequately protects the interests of minority shareholders.

In total, 26 cases will be examined by discussing the characteristics of the relevant parties involved, specifically plaintiffs, defendants, their lawyers, judges and also the grounds of complaint. A comparison will be made between the cases decided by following the first Company Law (1994) and the cases decided in accordance with the newly amended Company Law (2006).

The findings indicate that the amended Company Law has removed certain drawbacks in PMS present in the first Company Law (1994) but the New Company Law can protect interests of minority shareholders only to a certain extent. Further amendments are still needed.

This is one of the first studies to actually examine the implementation of PMS‐related provisions in the newly amended Company Law.

This is the twelfth article on business and law (BSL) databases in a continuing series of articles summarizing and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles, one covering science, technology, and medicine (STM) appeared in Online & CD‐ROM Review vol. 22, no.4 and the other covering social science, humanities, news, and general (SSH) appeared in Online & CD‐ROM Review vol. 22, no. 5. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

The purpose of this paper is to review the principal provisions of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which was enacted in April 2012 and represents significant legislative reform of securities regulation in the USA.

The paper examines the modified US securities regulatory regime introduced for initial public offerings and SEC reporting by a newly designated class of smaller securities issuers referred to as “emerging growth companies” and summarizes reforms to the regulation of capital‐raising transactions by small issuers and other companies that are intended to facilitate the creation of new jobs by easing regulatory burdens.

The JOBS Act should meet its objective of providing emerging growth companies, at reduced cost, with an orderly transition from a private existence with relatively few securities‐law concerns to a public one with numerous compliance obligations. Companies also will have greater opportunities to access capital through the availability of additional exemptions from Securities Act registration and the elimination of some restrictions on offering‐related communications with investors. The relaxation or elimination of long‐accepted methods for minimizing fraud and abuse in securities offerings, however, could result in a significant increase in investment scams and other wrongdoing.

The paper provides expert guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the legislation mandating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) principles is more effective than regulatory encouragement and voluntary company compliance in Kuwaiti Companies Law. Doctrinal legal research was used to analyse CSR provisions through a legal lens by comparing existing CSR provisions of UK and Indian Companies Law in order to determine a middle-ground approach for Kuwaiti Companies Law, since this research deduced that no such provisions exist in Kuwait. By comparing the Companies Laws of UK, India and Kuwait, a number of CSR provisional areas were explored, such as socioeconomic issues, governance structures, corporate constituencies, directors’ duties, corporate objectives and reporting. The findings show that Kuwait could adopt the models applied to both UK and India, but would gear more towards the Indian model since both countries share similar principles or views on CSR-related issues such as corporate philanthropy, as well as mandatory or prescriptive nature of their respected companies law. Although a potential middle-ground can be established for Kuwait’s legal vision, limitations such as the country’s strict culture and religion could potentially impede the provisions proposed in this thesis. Unless Kuwait changes its stance on cultural and religious issues, such as the gender divide and inequality, the proposed CSR provisions that relate to the religious and cultural norms in Kuwait may not make it into a future Companies Law. This research provides an original outlook on analysing and comparing existing CSR provisions in Companies Law across several contexts and recommends novel CSR provisions for countries that have yet to incorporate CSR provisions in their respective Companies Law.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which these reforms address the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s previous investment framework. Long viewed as a hostile environment in which to do business, the Saudi Government has enacted a broad sweep of measures aimed at restoring investor confidence in central aspects of the country’s evolving private law framework.

This paper offers a timely assessment of the raft of foreign investment reforms, both legislative and regulatory, that have been introduced in Saudi Arabia over the last decade.

The paper will proceed by outlining the perceived failings of the old investment regime before going on to reforms.

It will consider the remaining obstacles to the flow of foreign investment in Saudi Arabia in the context of the dual forces that have historically defined the Kingdom’s ambivalent investment law regime.

New Zealand’s 1993 Companies Act defines reckless trading as when a director/manager induces a “substantial risk of serious loss to the company’s creditors”. The definition contrasts with international common and statutory law that holds managers personally liable only under circumstances of moral failing. It also allows for managers to be found liable for bad investments during the continued existence of a firm. Replacing the standard of moral failing with a standard of objective risk evaluation and allowing culpability beyond bankruptcy proceedings extends liability in a way that indirectly taxes corporations. This extension of liability stands contrary to the evolutionary development of the corporation as based on an efficient redistribution of property rights. It biases investment towards lower risk, lower yield ventures, and is expected to decrease New Zealand’s innovation‐driven economic growth

China has achieved continuous economic growth and become more integrated with the global economy since the start of the current financial crisis in late 2008. As the second largest economy in the world, China's political policies, economic and social development have influence on global economy. Attention has been paid worldwide to the current Chinese legal system, political policies and the development of economic reform since China entered the World Trade Organisation in November 2001. The corporate governance reform is the centre of the enterprise reform. In September 1999, The Fourth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's 15th central Committee identified that corporate governance is the core of the modern enterprise system. In recent years China has made significant progress in developing the foundations of a modern corporate system. There are more than 1,200 companies which have successfully diversified their ownership through public listing and 80% of small and medium size companies have been transformed into non-state-owned enterprises. More and more state-owned enterprises are on the way to transforming into corporations. China has formed a legal framework for corporate governance.

This paper examines comparative aspects of Arab securities regulation. It provides a general introduction, overviews the aims of securities regulation and the UK regulatory framework, and outlines the obstacles facing equity financing under Shari'a and hindrances to effective Arab securities regulation. It accounts for the major macroeconomic reasons which have enhanced interest in Arab securities markets, examines lack of Arab rules on fraud, insider dealing and possible contractual remedies. It concludes with a case study shedding light on the term ‘securities’ as understood by Article 3 of the 1997 Jordanian Securities Act.

In the Netherlands, the ‘Tabaksblat Code’ (the Dutch corporate governance code of December) was a semi-private regulation instigated by the Dutch government, the stock exchange and industry associations to restore trust in the public equity markets. The aim was ‘to put the relationship between listed companies and providers of capital under the microscope’ in order to establish a new balance with a larger role for the shareholders (Tabaksblat, 2003, p. 59).

This study examines the accuracy and bias of profit forecasts disclosed in prospectuses by New Zealand companies for initial public offerings during the period 1987 to 1994. The results show that profit forecasts in this period are, on average, more accurate titan those disclosed prior to 1987, which were examined in prior studies. However, the results reject the null hypothesis that profit forecasts are accurate. In examining forecast bias, the evidence shows that the forecasts are, on average, somewhat pessimistic, but not sufficiently to reject the hypothesis that profit forecasts are unbiased. Tests of the determinants of error show that larger companies make more accurate forecasts, and forecasts made in the year 1987 are less accurate than in other years. Tests of the determinants of bias show that forecasts made in 1987 are also more optimistic, and that companies with longer trading histories and pessimistic forecasts make less biased forecasts. Forecast period and industry type are not significantly related to error or bias.