Abstract

While many criticize globalization as producing a ‘race to the bottom’ in which multinational corporations move activities to nations with less legal protections accorded to workers, the environment and so on, others argue that globalization may actually lead to an increase in legal protection, to ‘trading or globalizing up’. This chapter contributes to the dialogue by looking at globalizing up in the corporate law context by specifically analysing examples in which globalization has led to greater legal protections for minority shareholders against self-enriching conduct by controlling parties or large shareholders. While existing literature has examined globalizing up through the importation of corporate laws and corporate governance institutions by nations seeking to attract foreign capital for local corporations, this chapter, by discussing three recent cases, explores how globalization increases protections of minority shareholders when, as a result of international capital flows, foreigners become subject to a different nation’s more demanding corporate law.