Empirical Evidence for the Continuing Need to ‘Think Small First’ in UK Company Law

Abstract

The most recent UK corporate law restatement has its stated aim to ‘think small first’ in company law legislation. This article is the first to use data science and imaging techniques to provide an empirical snapshot of the entire UK corporate database. It identifies the continuing need to think small first: most companies are small when tested by corporate type (public v private) and type of accounts publicly filed. We then factor in time series, which evidences that most companies are newer and smaller companies. This article then identifies the implications of this novel empirical analysis. First, corporate law analysis tends to ‘think big first’, and will either need to justify such an approach or change it. Second, a large number of companies provide no public financial information due to inherent time lag.