Corporate law and corporate control in West Germany after 1945

According to the 'Varieties of Capitalism' and 'Law and Finance' approaches, legal institutions regulating corporate finance and governance shape specific national varieties of capitalism. This article analyses legal debates and practices of corporate control in post-war Germany from the perspective of business history. It argues that the stock corporation law did not have a significant impact on control practices. The law only roughly outlined rights of the supervisory boards and defined minimum standards. There was considerable room for manoeuvre within the corporations, and various effective and some ineffective control arrangements were possible. The article indicates that not only legal institutions but external political and economic factors were important for Germany's coordinated market economy and for the development of greater capital market control.