This course will introduce students to legal, financial, and political aspects of cases of corporate difficulties. Typical methods employed in this class will be comparative method and case studies. The course will start with the most important global cases of corporate difficulties following the 2008 financial crisis and then it will move to the particular cases in different markets. The course will be closed with the review of best practices and instruments applied in successful cases of overcoming corporate crises. Since this is a dynamic topic, we will continuously update our course with new cases and new legislative, economic, and political aspects. In general, there will be three assignments during the semester. Students will write and analyze a particular case, evaluate the implemented legislative, economic, and political instruments, and discuss class material. The course will start by familiarizing students with traditional legislation and corporate governance before the 2008 crisis broke out. We will explore how different financial instruments weakened the market position of banks, financial institutions, and big corporations, as well as the consequences of their corporate troubles on the domestic and international markets and economies. Students will also learn how state and international organizations reacted in order to overcome the crises. Finally, new legislative and economic approaches will be presented by exploring how corporate crisis affected legislative politics in selected European countries: EU and non-EU, rich and poor, former communist countries and those who were not. This class will familiarize students with procedures addressing financial and management crises within a broader approach to strategic crisis management. Students will also learn how to plan effective crisis solutions. Lastly, students should be able to comprehend and compute potential effects of both successful and unsuccessful crisis management on key stakeholders, corporate balance sheet and organizational standing, and on shareholders’ value and long-term institutional value. (Lecturer: Djuro Djuric)
