Few would believe … that a shareholder's interest in a corporation is property in the same way as the shareholder's interest in her back yard. This statement represents the common view held by the number of commentators over the years who have been faced with the question of whether shares give rise to a proprietary interest in the corporation, and hence whether shareholders are indeed the "owners" of the corporation. However, up until now there has also been a universally held view that the question is far from an easy one, with one prominent corporate law academic even saying that the task of defining the nature of a share was "one of the most difficult conceptual issues in company law".