Abstract
This study is concerned with the problem of alteration of
capital in public companies limited by shares. It is exclusively a study
of comparative law, and the confinement of the subject to public
companies limited by shares has been imposed only in order to
facilitate the comparison. There is practically no difference between
public and private companies in Scots and English Law in respect of the
alteration of capital, but the difference is growing enormously in other
systems of law, where private companies are usually regulated by separate
legislative acts, and very often bear a quite different "trade.name" of
their own. Thus, for example, the German institutions of G.m.b.H. and
Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, the Brazilian sociedade por quotas de
responsabilidade limitada, the Italian Società anonima per quote, and
their counterparts in other countries are excluded from this study.