Company law as another beggar-my-neighbour policy: Blog

In a Blog (Progressive-Economy@TASC), Jan Cremers (UvT) describes the paradigm change that took place in company law in the 1990s. Since the introduction of the European internal market, company law has been increasingly judged in terms of its impact on ‘competitiveness’. This has led to some worrying developments. If competitiveness and attractiveness become the key messages of the agenda for company lawmaking, this risks promoting a policy that will guide Member States towards reforms of their national legislation which promote rent-seeking at other countries’ expense. The outcome is predictable: less specific protection of various stakeholders (minority shareholders, creditors and so on), dilution of workers’ participation, fewer requirements with regard to registration, no capital requirements and more and more exemptions from the legislation in force.