Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Beneficial Ownership and Control: A Comparative Study - Disclosure, Information and Enforcement

Contents:

Author Info

  • Erik P.M. Vermeulen
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Investor confidence in financial markets depends in large part on the existence of an accurate disclosure regime that provides transparency in the beneficial ownership and control structures of publicly listed companies. This is particularly true for corporate governance systems that are characterised by concentrated ownership. On the one hand, large investors with significant voting and cash-flow rights may encourage long-term growth and firm performance. On the other hand, however, controlling beneficial owners with large voting blocks may have incentives to divert corporate assets and opportunities for personal gain at the expense of minority investors. The paper focuses particularly on the misuse of corporate vehicles, which arguably poses a major challenge to good corporate governance. Stakeholder rights (e.g. employees and creditors) cannot be properly exercised if ultimate decision- be identified. The accountability of the board may also be seriously endangered if stakeholders and the general public are unaware of decision-making and ultimate control structures. Finally, regulators and supervisory agencies have a strong interest in knowing beneficial owners – in order to determine the origin of investment flows, to prevent money laundering and tax evasion and to settle issues of corporate accountability.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k4dkhwckbzv-en
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by OECD Publishing in its series OECD Corporate Governance Working Papers with number 7.

    as in new window
    Length:
    Date of creation: 18 Jan 2013
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:oec:dafaae:7-en

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: 2 rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16
    Phone: 33-(0)-1-45 24 82 00
    Fax: 33-(0)-1-45 24 85 00
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.oecd.org
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords: shareholders; corporate governance; beneficial ownership; control-enhancing mechanisms; disclosure; inside blockholders; money laundering; outside blockholders; private enforcement; public enforcement;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oec:dafaae:7-en

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: () The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask to update the entry or send us the correct address.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.