The impact of law on the protection of minority shareholders, concentration of ownership and information asymmetry

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of law on the protection of minorities, the concentration of ownership and
information asymmetry on the basis of a comparison between civil law countries and common law
countries. This comparison is done by comparing the origin of these two types of law and the rights
that protect minority shareholders against expropriation of shareholders and executives. Similarly the
comparison happens to the concentration of ownership, based on the LLSV studies, and information
asymmetry by studying the problems of this asymmetry as well as solutions. This study was made by
comparison of 11 countries and 11 civil law common law countries. These results allow us to say that
minority shareholders are protected in the common law countries than in civil law countries, and for the
concentration of ownership that is most popular in common law countries than in civil law countries.
Against by the asymmetry of information the legal system has no effect on this variable.