Forced termination of minority shareholders' participation in a joint stock company

59 RESUMÉ The name of this diploma thesis is "Forced termination of minority shareholders in a joint-stock company". This topic is rather broad and comprises a variety of different ways how to rid the company of one or more shareholders. It was my decision not to cover a number of legal concepts superficially and rather focus on one in more detail. This diploma thesis therefore aims attention at the legal regulation of squeeze-outs, embodied in § 183i to § 183n of the Commercial Code. In 2005 a controversial law was enacted, that allowed the major shareholder (owning at least 90% of all the shares) to acquire all the rest of shares in the company from its current owners, irrespective of their will. Squeeze-outs are very common in developed countries and it would not be all that controversial had it not been for the exceptionally poor quality of the law. The regulation of squeeze-outs at the time of its enactment contained a number of ambiguities and generally provided weak protection to minority shareholders whose shares were to be acquired by the major shareholder. Since then the legal regulation has improved immensely and at this point it is safe to say that it is compatible with the Constitution and general requirements for protection of minority shareholders. The purpose of this thesis is to inspect the..