Corporate governance in Europe

IT IS not just in Japan that shareholder power is not all it's cracked up to be. The owners of public companies the world over frequently find themselves powerless. In America, shareholders sometimes must contend with poison pills that stop them selling their shares to a bidder that the board dislikes, and even more often with rules that allow managers to decide which motions shareholders can vote on at their firm's annual meeting. In Europe, meanwhile, shareholders count themselves lucky if they even have a vote.

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