Corporate Law as Decolonization

Abstract

After centuries of colonial subordination, Black and Brown former colonies are still fighting to achieve the fruits of decolonization. The traditional theory is that former colonies will emerge from the colonial period with the legal mandate and international recognition needed to chart their own futures. But, for those Black and Brown British colonies that achieved political independence, it became clear that, without economic strength to care for their societies, legal separation could not deliver on its promise of freedom from subordination. This Article argues that investments in corporate law innovations by some jurisdictions, such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands, have provided a pathway to postcolonial self-determination. These communities have generated immense wealth and autonomy for their populations in the postcolonial era by using strategies akin to those deployed by the State of Delaware. While former colonizers denigrate Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands as tax havens and corporate law imperialists, which must be aggressively governed to protect the tax base and financial sectors of “non-tax haven” countries, there is another side to this narrative: Offshore corporate law is freedom-promoting for some communities. This Article complicates the dominant perspective of corporate law imperialism and introduces a conceptualization of corporate law as decolonization to the legal and policy discourse on offshore financial centers