A History of Company Law in Colonial Australia: Economic Development and Legal Evolution

[The history of Australian company law has attracted remarkably little attention in academic literature, perhaps because it has mainly been seen as a copy of English law with few, if any, noteworthy features. This article points out several interesting and significant aspects of the evolution of Australian company law and considers this evolution in the context of the economic development of colonial Australia. Australian company law is an example of the transplantation of English law, raising the question of whether this transplant was successful. The central contention of this article is that although a substantial part of Australia’s company law was transplanted from England, its evolution was innovative and responsive to the economic needs of Australian society at the time. In particular, Australia’s company law was instrumental in financing the development of the mining industry, which played an important role in the economic success of colonial Australia.]