영국 회사법의 종류주식과 그 시사점

In spite of the international trend of flexible classification of shares, in our country’s existing corporation laws defined are in the name of 'several stock' only seven classes of shares including preference share, deferred share, and hybrid share respectively different in the dividend of profits or interest and the division of residual property, and specifically added to the ‘several stock’ are redeemable stock, convertible stock, and nonvoting preference share. But in our country where deferred share and hybrid share are not in utilization significant are only the other four classes of shares,among which the nonvoting preference share is most favored. In the revised bill of the commercial law several classes of shares are supplemented. But it does not seem to be sufficient. In contrast, by the section 629(1) of the Companies Act 2006, it is common for the articles of association to give a company complete freedom to issue shares with such rights and restrictions as the company may by ordinary resolution determine although most companies (public an private)limit their structures to ordinary shares. where a more sophisticated share structure is required (for example, to facilitate a division of control in a joint venture company), the company may have more classes of shares,typically ordinary and preference shares, and possibly several forms of each. For example, these several classes of shares are deferred shares, nonvoting ordinary shares, convertible shares, golden shares(multiple sharesㆍshares for classified board of directorㆍshares of veto). Therefore the corporation law of the korea must discuss adoption of the UK's new several classes of shares after analyzing their utility.