By the 1970s, Britain’s economic malaise had become chronic. This chapter shows how a group of business outsiders sought to cure the malaise by unleashing market forces. These buccaneers, including Jim Slater, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, and Gordon White perfected the art of the hostile takeover to shake up poor-quality incumbent management. They believed they were liberating assets and improving the performance of management by focusing their attention on shareholder value. This resulted in high-profile and acrimonious takeover battles. Their critics named them corporate raiders, and incumbents such as Denys Henderson of ICI fought back through accusations of asset stripping and sweating. Although few tangible elements of the buccaneers’ empires survived their fall in the 1990s, they had a profound impact on business strategy, the role of the CEO, and the British economy. They empowered CEOs, their demands for improved corporate leadership were followed, and a growing number of CEOs were sacked for poor performance. Their business model influenced the growing financialisation of companies and Margaret Thatcher’s economic reforms.

Upon the enactment of Chinese Civil Code, the previous rules that allowed for enlarged state power to annul contracts were dropped. Chinese law has gone one step further in promoting freedom of contract. The validity rules have been streamlined and the previous contradictory and inconsistent treatment between civil juristic acts and contracts, state and private parties eliminated. However, the new legislative technique will unavoidably facilitate asset stripping, the very reason that the paternalistic rules were in place. Through a historical, doctrinal, and logical lens, we will show why there can be no effective model of a neutral set of validity rules that deals with state-owned enterprises in a less than free and competitive market. The only way to make it work is to have SOEs exit most of the competitive industries and focus on areas that serve the policy goals. Also, paternalistic rules concerning the validity of a contract in trading state-assets should be enacted either in the Civil Code or through special legislations and applicable to government, state-owned enterprises and private parties alike