Controlling Shareholders and Corporate Governance- Better Monitors or More Self-Dealing?

Controlling shareholders have the potential to monitor managers better than do independent directors and the capital market. However, this response to the Berle-Means problem presents a different agency cost: the potential that the controlling shareholders will extract private benefits of control. Corporate governance rules and practices in the U.S. and in EU member states make it more or less difficult to accumulate a controlling position and are more or less rigorous in their policing of private benefits of control. This meeting examined the difference in regulatory strategy both across the Atlantic and within the EU. 

It took place at the Charlemagne Building, Brussels on Tuesday, 27th June 2006. 

This conference was supported by:

Telecom Italia

The European Commission

Goldman Sachs