Bibliographie sélective OHADA

Corporate law is in a moment of vibrant and contentious discussions about potential reforms. As firms exit Delaware, passive investment predominates, private equity expands, and public markets decline, corporate law faces a growing set of challenges that threaten its stability and efficacy. At the same time, the world faces pressing crises, including climate change, social and economic inequalities, and threats to democracy, though corporate law scholars typically consider these crises to be outside corporate law’s remit. In this Article, we argue that to understand and address the multidimensional crises that face both corporate law and society, we must address shortcomings in corporate law doctrine. We show how modern corporate law, shaped by neoclassical economic theories, provides an incomplete picture of the firm, and we propose an expanded theoretical perspective that draws from organization theory, a field long dedicated to understanding the complexities of the firm. This updated perspective demonstrates how firms actually consist of multiple constituents, including workers, the environment, and shareholders, who invest different forms of capital in the firm: labor capital, natural capital, and financial capital. It further shows that modern corporate law entrenches problematic power imbalances, privileging boards and insider shareholders over workers, the environment, and minority shareholders. Moreover, building on organization theory, we explain how corporate law fundamentally shapes and constrains firm behavior, leading these entrenched power imbalances to generate far-reaching negative consequences. To address these shortcomings, we propose redesigning board representation, fiduciary duties, and executive compensation to empower workers, the environment, and minority shareholders in relation to boards and insider shareholders. Integrating the organizational and economic perspectives can help address problematic power imbalances and ultimately provide a more effective corporate law framework to govern firms and serve society.

OHADA Law plays a crucial role in fostering economic growth and regional integration by harmonizing business regulations in the era of globalization and trade liberalization. This study examines the legal framework surrounding company membership under OHADA Law. While certain individuals such as legally incapacitated persons or those facing legal prohibitions cannot become company members, the law provides alternative solutions. The study explores the distinction between members and shareholders and clarifies the eligibility criteria for company membership. Using an analytical approach, this research finds that any natural or corporate entity, unless restricted by legal incapacity, prohibition, or incompatibility, can be a company member under OHADA Uniform Act. Furthermore, the law offers flexibility for incapacitated individuals by allowing legal representatives to act on their behalf.

Les pouvoirs et missions du commissaire aux comptes se sont accrus, allant de la mission principale de certification des comptes sociaux à des missions annexes d’information, de garantie d’égalité entre associés et de pérennité de l’entreprise. Au regard de l’importance de ce contrôleur légal, le législateur OHADA a, sous certaines conditions, généralisé sa présence dans les sociétés commerciales. Dans son office, il doit revêtir les vertus d’un contrôleur indépendant. Condition sine qua non de l’efficacité de sa mission, cette indépendance est consacrée par le législateur OHADA à travers notamment la prévention des situations possibles de dépendance et l’érection de certaines garanties préventives et curatives d’indépendance. Toutefois, un certain nombre de facteurs, résultant tant de la législation que de la pratique, sont potentiellement sources d’affaiblissement de cette indépendance recherchée, rendant nécessaire un meilleur renforcement afin de permettre à cet « organe supra social » de remplir pleinement sa mission de contrôle.

Whistleblower protection is necessary to reduce mismanagement in private and public organisations worldwide. The protection of whistleblowers is a complex and particularly challenging task that it is up to national authorities. The research methodology is the literature review. In this context, reputable scientific journals, reports from international organisations and websites dealing with the research field of whistleblowers are studied. The main conclusions are that there is an institutional framework for the functioning and protection of whistleblowers, but best practices are not fully implemented. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the use of whistleblowers is extremely high in detecting fraud and high public risks compared to other audit techniques. For this reason, the protection and framework of the whistleblower process is increasingly being legislated for by more and more countries as their importance is recognised. Finally, monitoring the use of whistleblowers and applying best practices and criteria for their effectiveness will make their use more effective.

La propriété et le pouvoir entretiennent un lien très étroit dans la mesure où les détenteurs du capital social, en leur qualité de propriétaires, s’illustrent généralement par leur propension à vouloir exercer le pouvoir au sein de la société commerciale dont la majorité des titres sociaux sont détenus, à vouloir diriger, administrer, contrôler la société. Le législateur OHADA permet de rompre un tel lien en offrant la possibilité de désigner des dirigeants qui n’ont pas la qualité d’associé ou même des tiers en qualité d’administrateurs. Il y a donc une volonté manifeste de dépatrimonialisation du pouvoir : les associés, propriétaires, ne sont plus nécessairement détenteurs du pouvoir décisionnel au sein de la société. Les associés minoritaires ou commanditaires sont quasiment insignifiants dans le fonctionnement de la société dont les grandes orientations sont décidées par les associés majoritaires ou les associés commandités, alors qu’ils ont tous sans exception, participer à la constitution du capital social.

In this Article, I analyze the expanding common law doctrine of shareholder ratification, whereby shareholder approval can, for all practical purposes, absolve directors of fiduciary liability for their conflicted business decisions. Delaware law now allows a shareholder vote to perform substantially more work than ever before. Under prevailing doctrine, in transactions between a company and any party other than a controlling shareholder, shareholder ratification reinstates the business judgment rule and makes it irrebuttable, other than for waste. Substantive judicial review is effectively avoided for such transactions. Despite its extraordinary importance in corporate governance, the shareholder ratification doctrine’s foundations are feeble and its limits uncertain. Theoretically, there is no well-established basis for equating shareholder approval with either the informed, disinterested, and good-faith decision of a board or judicial review. Doctrinally, shareholder ratification’s expansion beyond its traditional context of self-dealing has been a judicial innovation, rather than an elaboration of precedent. And historically, the shareholder ratification doctrine, which originated in early 20th-century state interesteddirector statutes, was motivated by fairness principles that were lost in translation into the common law. This Article recovers the fairness genealogy of the shareholder ratification doctrine and, in doing so, provides useful guidance for the doctrine’s development, limits, and future application.

This article examines corporate governance in Africa and its significance for corporate repurposing. It relies on the framework of the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), which unites seventeen African states under one corporate law jurisdiction while exploring how the interpretation and practice of this legal system can be integrated with or influenced by national sectoral laws and cultural norms. The workings of these different legal sources denote the case for heterodox pluralism of corporate purpose, whereby corporate membership is not tethered to shareholding only, but the workforce and neighbouring too and corporate legitimacy is not merely a function of legal arrangements but equally derives from broader society. The governance of corporations in Africa must correspond to such imperatives to ensure that the prevailing shareholder primacy norm does not continue its unencumbered de facto reign and reduce African stakeholderism to comparative impotence and mere scholarly exercise.