The Companies Act 2006 is the longest statute on any subject ever to pass through the Westminster Parliament. That is the measure of the challenge, both for an author and for students of company law particularly when added to the formidable panorama of decided cases. The pace of change in company law is sometimes bewildering but the subject matter is always fascinating. This book is written primarily for students. It is hoped, however, that some of the ideas will be of interest to the researcher and some of the analyses relevant for the practitioner. As always, I am grateful to colleagues and to students past and present for their help. I am very grateful to my editorial team for their patience and assistance, and I am also extremely grateful to Sandra Morgan for her inexhaustible patience in decoding manuscripts and dictated disks. The law may be complex and increasing in volume and complexity, but since Jonathan Swift commented as long ago as 1711 that, ‘If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for 50 years past; I am in some concern for future ages, how any man will be learned or any man a lawyer’, perhaps we have, in reality, no reason to fear that volume and complexity!