A legal analysis of corporate sector structural reform in Thailand

Law Reform has been one of the most important tools of the Corporate Sector Structural Reform in Thailandsince the first ‘conditionalities' set under the IMF rescue package. However, very few researches have been madeto review the adequacy and the efficiency of such Law Reform. This article tries such a review on the Thailand'scorporate sector reform, in the context of critical analysis over the growing trend of Legal Technical Assistance ini-tiated by both multilateral and bilateral donors.As in majority cases, the Legal Reform in Thai corporate sector was promoted under the pressure from the mostpositive donors, that is, World Bank and the US government, and accordingly, the model for the reform has essen-tially been the American law. However, it is known that American corporate law is a quite unique product of itsfederation system, where the states' corporation laws have been playing a ‘race for the bottom' to deregulate and toenlarge the freedom of management, and the federal stock exchange has been the only actor to set the minimum reg-ulations over them. It is quite doubtful that such a deregulated model as the American corporate law can help seri-ous reform in Thailand's corporate sector where traditional family-owned private companies have been manipulatedeach major industry. A careful legal analysis tells that the recent law amendments done in Thailand is not a simpletransplantation of the American model, which would reflect the Thai law-makers unwillingness toward the com-pelled foreign models