Company Law Reform*

Company law reform may seem to be a remote subject for socialists, but this pamhplet makes interesting and stimulating reading, Socialist thought on company law reform has been singularly meagre according to Professor K.W. Wedderburn, Professor of Commercial Law at the London School of Economics, "We still lack....a perspective, or strategy, for socialist proposals on company law reform" he claims in this new Fabian pamphlet. The fundamental question he asks is "What are the appropriate conditions on which the community will continue to provide legal facilities for persons to aggregate and make use of private capital under the advantages enjoyed for the past century?" Professor Wedderburn considers Company Law Reform from three different aspects: "what adaptions should be sought in the traditional scheme of disclosure, secondly how far can the law continue to rest upon the model of “shareholders! democracy" in days of increasing independent management in companies of any size, and thirdly, what modifications of the law are needed to take account of interests now not recognised by it, for example, those of employees," Of particular interest to readers of this journal are his recommendations about disclosure and the legalisation of employees! rights by legal reforne * Company Law Reform, price 2s 9d, pep. from Fabian Society, 11, Dartmouth Street, London S.W. l.