4 mai 2009
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Quôc Thai Huynh, « L’INFLUENCE DE L’ACTIVISME DES ACTIONNAIRES MINORITAIRES SUR LA GOUVERNANCE DES ENTREPRISES FRANÇAISES COTEES », HAL-SHS : droit et gestion, ID : 10670/1.cikruo
Since the New Economic Regulation law in 2001, the legislator has clearly demonstrated his dedication to the corporate governance rules instigated by the Viénot report in 1995. In France, the minority shareholders’ defence associations are the primary support for the promotion of good practice. Unfortunately, the legislating market authorities did not deem it necessary to impose it by law. Instead they preferred to let public companies choose their bylaws following the principle of « comply or justify ». The governance question is a major issue for a company’s development. Even the biggest firms on the stock exchange are slow to adopt the corporate governance recommendations, despite the positive signal they could send to the market by conforming to the rules. Furthermore, their preference is to maintain their stance that bylaws conflict with shareholders’ interests. By testing a set of corporate governance criterions, this study seeks to investigate this issue by exploring the relationships between acts of activism, corporate governance structure and financial performances. Minority shareholders are the originators of this activism because they are the primary losers when the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or the controlling shareholders decide to maximize their own wealth. The focus of this enquiry is to identify whether minority shareholders can be considered a credible counter power when all the other external control mechanisms have failed.