Societas Privata Europaea: Quo Vadis? - Past, Present and Future of the European Private Company

Abstract

Due to the onward realization of the European Single Market, trans-border organizational and re-organizational legal forms obtain evermore importance for European corporations. This holds not only for economic normal cases in which expansion in other Member States mints the picture, but also for periods of crisis, when the pressure to consolidation generally increases and does not spare national borders. Thus the leitmotifs for the European legislator for the creation of a company law related organizational frame in Europe particularly are mobility, integration and efficiency. The draft regulation of a European Statute for the introduction of the “Societas Privata Europaea”, the European Private Company is available since June 25th 2008.

This thesis comprehensively comments on the latest project of a supranational business form and shows its development from the very beginning up to the state of play in order to ultimately cast a glance into the future by answering the questions “Is the European Private Company necessary?”, “Does there a market demand for this supranational company form exist?” and “Will the Societas Privata Europaea work out in practice?”

Keywords: Societas Privata Europaea (SPE), European Private Company (EPC), supranational business forms, European company law, company law reforms, European Company, Societas Europaea (SE)