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This paper revisits the classic question of legal origins: whether laws originating from common or civil law traditions are more effective in promoting shareholder-friendly governance rules in corporations and whether these rules lead to better firm outcomes. Corporate governance cannot be easily disentangled from other sources that can influence firm outcomes. This paper takes up the challenge of disentangling these effects by assembling a new dataset of corporations in Egypt between 1887 and 1913. Egypt had an unusual system of incorporation. The main legal system was a close and effective French transplant but entrepreneurs—Europeans and Egyptians alike—had the option of incorporating their firms under any European law. This extraordinary legal flexibility resulted in a great deal of variation in choice of law, governance provisions, and board composition. The new findings show that companies incorporated under British law provided broadly weaker shareholder protection than companies incorporated under French laws, especially in giving weaker voting rights to minority shareholders, preventing oversight over directors’ borrowing powers, and limiting director rotation. These rules mattered for firm survival. Corporations with weaker investor protection had significantly higher failure risk, amplified during periods of aggregate financial distress.
