Jeeballah, Abubaker Musbah Imsayib and Milman, David and Lawton, Philip (2016) To what extent does the Libyan shareholder protection regime offer equivalent protection to that found in similar selected corporate law systems? PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
The application of “majority rule” within the company has the potential to lead to unfair results either for the minority shareholders or for the company itself, hence, it is the task of the legislature to provide minority shareholders with a matrix of rules that seek to protect them from misguided managerial behaviour. In that regard, this thesis set out to examine to what extent the Libyan shareholder protection regime offers equivalent protection to that found in the English and Moroccan corporate law regimes. It evaluates the current level of protection that is offered to minority shareholders in Libya in comparison with that available in England and Morocco in order to participate in a reform programme aimed at establishing a sufficient system of corporate governance in Libya via enhancing the rules that protect the minority shareholder. The reliance on a comparative study in this thesis is based on an assumption that law should be assessed from a wide perspective and the experience of other jurisdictions should be taken into account in order to reform the current law by establishing a high standard level of protection for the minority shareholders. Such reform would grant shareholders a degree of confidence which is considered a necessary step to attract investments and develop the economic strength of the whole country. The conclusion of this work reveals several weaknesses and serious shortcoming in the Libyan corporate law regime, thereby it provides a basis for suggestions on how to improve minority shareholder protection in Libya based on the English and Moroccan experience. In that process, some suggestions and recommendations are provided which is the purpose of this work and the hope is that they will be taken on board in any proposal for reform in Libya. The study recommends a reform in the existing rules of minority shareholder protection in order to create an effective system of safeguards for the minority shareholders. Such reforms promise domestic and foreign investors that all companies under Libyan laws are managed, directed and controlled by upright, truthful, honest and efficient managers. This work will also pave the way for further studies that might be conducted in order to further enhance a robust system of corporate governance in Libya which would contribute to the growth of the national economy.