Corporate Governance Regulation in the European Union – From Harmonization to Marketization

Abstract

The previous chapter discussed the shift from company law harmonization, with a strong focus on industrial democracy, towards a regulatory approach based on minimum requirements and mutual recognition. The focus of this chapter is now on the political constitution of the marketization of corporate control, geared at adjusting the governance of corporations to the demands of liberalized capital markets. Here, the chapter also seeks to explain the ‘seeming incongruity’ between the laissez-faire regulatory stance that has become prevalent in EU market integration policies on the one hand, and strong regulatory protection of shareholders on the other (Soederberg 2010).