The Jenkins Report.

Abstract The Jenkins Report, issued in June 1962, is the popular title of Report of the Company Law Committee, a 14-member body including, apparently, but two accountants, appointed late in 1959 by the President of Great Britain Board of Trade, the latter organization having, among its other regulatory powers, the responsibilities for licensing corporations and a number of functions. The Committee, headed by Lord Jenkins, a prominent British jurist, was asked "to review and report upon the provisions and working of the Companies Act of 1948" and upon certain other acts of Great Britain Parliament; and "to consider in the light of modem conditions and practices, including the practice of takeover bids, what should be the duties of directors and the rights of shareholders; and generally to recommend what changes in the law are desirable." At the outset one is impressed with the restricted approach to the problems confronting the Committee. Its chief concern is with ownership and controls; the public interest in the interrelations of directors and stockholders only by indirection received the Committee's attention. The Committee's report supplies a valuable source for the comparison of British corporate practice with that in the United States.