Re-Imagining Offshore Finance

Description

Small jurisdictions have become significant players in cross-border corporate and financial services. Their nature, legal status, and market roles, however, remain under-theorized. Lacking a sufficiently nuanced framework to describe their functions in cross-border finance - and the peculiar strengths of those achieving global dominance in the marketplace - it remains impossible to evaluate their impacts in a comprehensive manner.

This book advances a new conceptual framework to refine the analysis and direct it toward more productive inquiries. Bruner canvasses extant theoretical frameworks used to describe and evaluate the roles of small jurisdictions in cross-border finance. He then proposes a new concept that better captures the characteristics, competitive strategies, and market roles of those achieving global dominance in the marketplace - the "market-dominant small jurisdiction" (MDSJ). Bruner identifies the central features giving rise to such jurisdictions' competitive strengths - some reflect historical, cultural, and geographic circumstances, while others reflect development strategies pursued in light of those circumstances. Through this lens, he evaluates a range of small jurisdictions that have achieved global dominance in specialized areas of cross-border finance, including Bermuda, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Delaware. Bruner further tests the MDSJ concept's explanatory power through a broader comparative analysis, and he concludes that the MDSJs' significance will likely continue to grow - as will the need for a more effective means of theorizing their roles in cross-border finance and the global dynamics generated by their ascendance.

About the author

Christopher M. Bruner is Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. His teaching and scholarship focus on a range of corporate and transactional subjects, including Corporations, Corporate Finance, Deals and Comparative Corporate Law. He conducted comparative research as a visitor to the law faculties of the University of Cambridge, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Leeds, the University of Sydney, the University of Toronto, and the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Corporate Governance in the Common-Law World: The Political Foundations of Shareholder Power (2013), and his articles have appeared in a variety of law and policy journals. He received his A.B., M.Phil., and J.D. from the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, respectively.

Table of contents

List of Figures
Preface
PART I: SMALL JURISDICTIONS IN CROSS-BORDER FINANCE
Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
Chapter 2: Conceptualizing the Role of Small Jurisdictions
A. Whither Globalization?
B. Theorizing Small Jurisdictions
i. Tax Havens
ii. Offshore Financial Centers
iii. Micro-States and Global Cities
iv. English Legal Origins
C. Capital Mobility and Regulatory Competition
PART II: MARKET-DOMINANT SMALL JURISDICTIONS (MDSJs)
Chapter 3: What Is an MDSJ?
A. An Ideal Type
B. Comparative Methods
Chapter 4: Bermuda
A. Bridging the Atlantic
B. (Re)Insurance and "Captives"
Chapter 5: Dubai
A. The Cross-Roads of Europe, Africa, and Asia
B. Islamic Finance
Chapter 6: Singapore
A. East Meets West
B. Wealth Management
Chapter 7: Hong Kong
A. The Gateway to China
B. Mainland Finance
Chapter 8: Switzerland
A. At the Heart of Europe
B. Cross-Border Banking
Chapter 9: Delaware
A. Mediating Financial and Political Power
B. Business Entity Registration
PART III: MDSJs AND OTHER FINANCIAL CENTERS
Chapter 10: Failed Small Jurisdictions and Successful Large Jurisdictions
A. Revisiting the Ideal Type
B. Failed Small Jurisdictions
C. Successful Large Jurisdictions
Chapter 11: Conclusions
Index