Exploring sustainable governance: Compliance with the Italian related party transactions regulation for the legal protection of minority shareholders

Regarding the development of sustainable governance systems, many regulators have issued and developed self‐regulatory codes defining the characteristics and ideal features of government models. The adoption of codes of good governance could serve as a mechanism to increase the level of legal protection for minority shareholders. Thus, this paper aims to measure the effective compliance by Italian listed companies with the Italian Code's recommendations on related party transactions and to assess the level of legal protection for minority shareholders in the Italian stock market. Using a quantitative method, our findings suggest that FTSE MIB companies are effectively compliant and that public utilities companies are as well. We also carried out an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and found that companies with a higher market value and a greater presence of independent and non‐executive directors assure a higher level of compliance. We observed that widely held firms have a positive effect on the level of legal protection for the minority shareholders. Our paper contributes to enriching the sustainable governance models, and it is directed to academic and practical communities.