Die Mitgliedschaft in der Investmentaktiengesellschaft

As a reaction to the rational apathy of small investors, German legislators introduced a concept of asymmetric membership of joint-stock companies with a massive imbalance in power between the extremely powerful enterprise shareholders and their weaker counterparts, investment shareholders. This concept deviates radically from the ordinary membership structure of German stock corporations. Stefan Blenk comprehensively analyses the ways of protecting the weak minority shareholders from excessive majority power and adapts the legislative concept of asymmetric membership to the requirements of the minority. Considering the general validity of his adapted concept of asymmetric membership, the author recommends the adoption of the central innovations of such a concept into general company law, that is, the deletion of the principle of mandatory law and the introduction of non-voting investment shareholders.