A Primer on Corporate Governance

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.