SHARE LAW: TOWARD A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF CORPORATE LAW ASAF RAZ* ABSTRACT Shares are an instrumental phenomenon in law, finance and modern life. Much of corporate law revolves around shares and shareholders, but our current understanding of shares is in a trou- bling posture: it resorts to various frameworks—contract, proper- ty, trust, and fiduciary law—neither of which can correctly ac- commodate the concept of shares. Contrary to prevailing notions, in both Delaware and other jurisdictions around the world, this Ar- ticle proves that shareholders are not directly owed fiduciary du- ties; nor can they be simply described as contractual parties, due to the unique properties of shares as residual claims. Where do shares derive their value from? What rules and principles govern shares? The answer is that shares inhabit their own legal space. Weaving together corporate theory, doctrine, and real-life cases, this Article proposes the concept of share law, a new field of classi- fication within corporate law. Share law, which is grounded in eq- uity, provides the normative structure for conceptualizing, analyz- ing, and resolving share-related issues—including some very high- profile topics, such as dividends and buybacks, aspects of mergers and acquisitions, appraisal rights, multiple-class equity, sharehold- * S.J.D. Candidate, University of Pennsylvania Law School.
[email protected]. LL.M. with distinction, University of Penn- sylvania Law School; LL.B., B.A., Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. Associate Ed- itor, Volume 39, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law. All translations in this Article are by the author. My deepest gratitude is owed to Amir Licht, David Skeel, the Hon.