ABSTRACT
Generally speaking, the position set out in paras 1-41 and 1-42 above continued for a number of years55 until around 1720 when the South Sea Bubble burst.56 Notwithstanding more recent commercial scandals,57 the collapse of the South Sea Company remains one of the most infamous episodes in British commercial history. It was not until the next century that the ‘stock market’ got back into shape when many joint stock companies were formed to finance and manage projects both in the UK and abroad.
