ABSTRACT
The role of a range of guidelines, rules and sanctions in the shaping of social behaviour has been asserted with considerable force by the group of legal researchers who contribute to and edit the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. Many accounts of the development of company law have characterized the choice between limited and unlimited liability in company law as dichotomous. The Minute stated: Facilities should not be afforded to joint stock partnerships which may interfere with private enterprises carried on under the existing partnership law. Authorities on company law, such as Gower, have preferred a psychological, rather than a legal explanation for the lack of significant progress on a more systematic framework for company law during the century following the enactment of the Bubble Act. The repeal of the Bubble Act in 1825 occurred amongst rumblings from the Bench that joint stock companies were contrivances that were impermissible at common law.
