Minority shareholders: General issues on the definition of the concept and mechanisms of legal protection

The protection of the rights of minority shareholders is an important issue of corporate governance and company law regulations, which has a transnational character. In order to provide an adequate protection to minority shareholders, it is necessary to understand and define the concept of minority shareholders, as well as the mechanisms for establishing a balance between the majority and minority in the company, so one can prevent the expropriation of minority rights. The subject of this paper is defining different categories of minority shareholders including the available protection mechanisms. The ultimate goal of the research is defining the criteria used for determing the notion of minority shareholders, identifying different categories of minority shareholders and providing both normative and 'soft law' mechanisms for the protection of minority shareholders.