The article presents information on employee stock options. It is common practice for many corporations, when negotiating an employment contract with an administrative officer, to grant the employee an option to purchase a designated number of shares in the corporation which employs him. Occasionally the option is exercisable immediately for the full number of shares agreed upon, but more often the contract provides that only a limited number of shares can be acquired each year or that the option can not be exercised until a given period of time has elapsed. Some option agreements have no limit upon their life but others lapse unless exercised by a specified date. The tendency is to make the option nontransferable, although even at this point no uniform pattern is discernible. Some options are assignable, while others are not. The option most favorable to the officer employee establishes an option price for the stock at a figure somewhat below the then existing market price. In this instance the option may have an immediate realizable value. This is particularly true if it is assignable or can be exercised immediately.

The last two decades have witnessed an enormous increase in the use of the holding company as a device for financing and welding together hitherto independent units of business operation, as of March 1933. In no field of business endeavor has the growth of holding companies been so pronounced as in the field of public utilities. The motives prompting its use have often been of questionable character. Financial history is replete with instances in which the purpose apparently has been to achieve individual objectives at the expense of the balance of society. Even a superficial study of the economic losses resulting from holding company collapses raises a serious question as to their social desirability. Some students of business insist that the holding company is a by-product of a period of stable price levels when increased outputs with declining costs were the order of the day. They insist that during trying times disintegration will take place and that the successful business of the immediate future will be the small business unit which has shaken itself free from expenses entailed by heavy overheads and idle plants found in the larger organizations.

Reviews the book "Cases on American Business Law," by A.B. Frey.