The European private company in the light of the Societas Europaea (SE)

Abstract

The EU, with a strong internal market is seeking to become the largest, most dynamic and knowledge-based economy in the world. This requires action at a European level in various areas. Enterprises are the generators of the economy and they require an adequate legal framework that facilitates and complements their activity. For many years the Commission has chosen the method of harmonisation as a means of facilitating business operations and of creating a standard level of protection to members of companies and third parties. There has also been the proposal for a Societas Europaea which has seen several failures but has finally come to being in October 2004. The way the SE has been conceived and the way the SE Regulation has been drafted make it unsuitable for private companies, in particular SMEs. So in this thesis I will first analyse the SE Regulation and criticise it from the point of view of SMEs. An answer to this inadequacy of the SE from the point of view of small companies, has been proposed by a group of academics and the CCIP in the form of an EPC. Later the Commission itself has considered the possibility that there may be a need for such a structure. So after analysing some special needs SMEs have when compared to large, public companies, I have studied what shape an eventual EPC ought to have. Subsequently, I have analysed the proposal by the CCIP for an EPC. Much of the research for this thesis has been conducted at the Universite de Rennes, and this is why many of the sources are French apart from the fact that the original proposal for an EPC is a French initiative. Although much has been written as regards the SE, the same cannot be said for the EPC, because after all this is a relatively recent proposal and the Commission has only recently launched a study to analyse the feasibility of a European company for SMEs. As regards this study I have contacted the legal advisor within the firm that is conducting this study. She has been very helpful and provided useful information, however much of this is confidential. It is only in November that there will be a conference held by the Commission wherein the results of the study will be published.