New Company Law for Malawi

Company law needs to be reformed so as to promote and maintain the protection of the interests of shareholders, creditors and the community. These are the three “social and economic needs to which a system of company law should respond”. These three purposes of company law are not mutually exclusive. However, the weighting of them depends on the space factor and time factor of law reform. Space factor refers to the differences in economic, social, political and other conditions and needs between one country and another at a given time. So, “Whereas in Britain one of the main purposes of company legislation is to protect the interests of shareholders, in a developing country like Malawi its main function should be to protect the interests of the national economy since most of the effective shareholders will in fact be non-resident in the country.” Time factor refers to the differences in economic, social, political and other conditions and needs of a country between one time and another. For example, the increasing internationalisation of the Malawian political economy, through branches and subsidiaries of multinational companies and joint-ventures, may demand that companies’ legislation in Malawi respond to the conditions and needs of such an economy. Of course, the two factors constantly act on each other

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• Company Law and Capitalism

  J T Winkler, Jiří­ Winkler et al.•British Journal of Law and Society•1974

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