DiKE Gestaltungsfreiheit im Recht der Publikumsgesellschaft

To what extent should private individuals enjoy creative freedom in shaping the legal relationships in public companies? Or, in other words, to what extent are mandatory norms in stock corporation and public company law legitimate? These are the questions addressed in this habilitation thesis. Contrary to the tendency towards more regulation, Daniel Häusermann argues that lawmaking in public company law should be based on the guiding principle of creative freedom and that mandatory norms are legitimate only in exceptional cases. The law would then have the function of optimizing the privately autonomous shaping of law by means of dispositive norms as well as by means of rules for internal company decision-making. The author breaks down the approach he has developed to concrete applications and shows, on the basis of numerous reform proposals, what a stock corporation and stock exchange company law could look like that is based on the primacy of creative freedom.