Bank Restructuring and the Protection of Shareholders’ Rights under CEMAC Banking Regulations

This paper sets out to explore how the disruption of corporate governance arrangements within a restructured bank can alter the legitimate rights of bank shareholders (owners).  The study investigates how much protection the law in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC) affords shareholders within a context of diminished shareholder control over the bank, and additional intrusion into bank management and control by external parties. It has been established that though shareholders have ownership rights in a bank, when the corporate entity is at the brink of collapse, a curtailment of shareholders’ rights is inevitable, for its return to normalcy. Moreover, other stakeholders such as bank customers, creditors and the economy as a whole have interests in the restructured bank which out-scale the sole interest of shareholders. As such, the right balance must be found among these competing interests for bank restructuring to be fair to all stakeholders.