European Takeover Law: The Case for a Neutral Approach

31 Pages Posted: 12 May 2010 Last revised: 24 Sep 2010

See all articles by Luca Enriques

Luca Enriques

University of Oxford Faculty of Law; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: August 6, 2010

Abstract

This paper argues that in revising the Takeover Bid Directive, EU policymakers should adopt a neutral approach toward takeovers, i.e. enact rules that neither hamper nor promote them. The rationale behind this approach is that takeovers can be both value-creating and value-decreasing and there is no way to tell ex ante which kind they are. Unfortunately, takeover rules cannot be crafted so as to hinder all the bad takeovers while at the same time promoting the good ones. Further, contestability of control is not cost-free, because it has a negative impact on managers’ and block-holders’ incentives to make firm-specific investments of human capital, which in turn affects firm value. It is thus argued that individual companies should be able to decide how contestable their control should be. After showing that the current EU legal framework for takeovers overall hinders takeover activity in the EU, the paper identifies three rationales for a takeover-neutral intervention of the EU in the area of takeover regulation (pre-emption of “takeover-hostile,” protectionist national regulations, opt-out rules protecting shareholders vis-à-vis managers’ and dominant shareholders’ opportunism in takeover contexts, and menu rules helping individual companies define their degree of control contestability) and provides examples of rules that may respond to such rationales.

Keywords: Takeover Bid Directive, Board Neutrality, Mandatory Bid Rule, Market for Corporate Control

JEL Classification: K22, G34, G38

Suggested Citation

Enriques, Luca, European Takeover Law: The Case for a Neutral Approach (August 6, 2010). FEEM Working Paper No. 45.2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1601288 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1601288

Luca Enriques (Contact Author)

University of Oxford Faculty of Law ( email )

St Cross Building
St Cross Road
Oxford, OX1 3UL
United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

HOME PAGE: http://http:/www.ecgi.org

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

Paper statistics

Downloads
587
Abstract Views
3,002
Rank
28,354
PlumX Metrics