A Primer on Corporate Governance (Félix J. López-Iturriaga)

Spain has a civil law-based legal system, and court decisions are not a source of law but are of interpretative value. The privatization of large state-owned firms, liberalization, integration with the European Union, and the launch of the euro have all contributed to the transformation of Spain’s financial system into a modern market. This book covers the main features of the Spanish model of corporate governance and will help you understand the characteristics of a civil law and a bank-oriented financial system in which banks play an active role relative to markets. For example, the bank orientation within Spain is built so that the corporate governance system relies heavily on the internal mechanisms of governance. Spain also bypasses the standard procedures of controlling shareholders mitigating conflicts between management and minority shareholders; instead, Spain allows controlling shareholders to mitigate the conflict between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders. Each chapter provides an inside look at the functioning of both internal and external mechanisms of corporate control.