{"title":"Groups of Companies in European Comparative Law","authors":"Rabai Bouderhem","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021008","url":null,"abstract":"Groups of companies are today key players in international trade through their crossborder activities. Their asset management – sometimes to the detriment of a subsidiary – or tax optimisation offered by a multitude of laws applicable to their subsidiaries make it essential to regulate groups more closely. It is unanimously accepted in France or the UK, for example, that the group of companies does not have its own nationality or a single lex societatis. However, this classic solution could be revisited and the group of companies could be apprehended as a single legal unit in specific cases. Today, few national laws deal with groups of companies as a legal unit. Very often, these are scattered provisions. In many European states, an economic unit of the group can sometimes be retained by certain legislative and regulatory provisions but also by the courts such as in competition law or in tax and social matters. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that regulation of groups of companies deserves to be revived by the European authorities and that the economic, political and social challenges are considerable for all member states of the European Union and beyond. Indeed, the Court of Justice of the European Union has shown real normative power with regard to groups of companies, due to the absence of a directive or regulation applicable to groups. The German legislation on groups of companies is a prime example and the regulations relating to the European company remind us that a consensus is possible at the level of the European Union.","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42622574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Behavioural Economics in European Corporate Governance – Much Ado about Nudging?","authors":"Marina B. Madsen","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021011","url":null,"abstract":"Shareholder engagement from institutional investors remains a topic on the agenda of both legislators and in the public debate. The recent amendment of the SRD can be seen as a token of a pan-European ‘hardening of shareholder norms’. The arising question is if this hardening is sufficient to change the behaviour of institutional investors. Using insights from behavioural economics, the article discusses if the European Union and national Member States can apply nudging or other insights from behavioural economics to increase shareholder engagement and argues that in order to follow a behaviourally informed strategy, a distinct justification of both the applied means and the pursued purposes is required.\u0000Corporate governance, European Union, shareholder engagement, active ownership, institutional investors, behavioural economics, choice architecture, nudging, biases, libertarian paternalism","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42883369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Partnership Law: Used, Misused or Abused?","authors":"Elspeth Berry","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021009","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the increasing use of UK partnerships for criminal purposes, often in other jurisdictions, and argues that the regulatory responses are inadequate, and must be supplemented by a comprehensive ethical framework. I first argue that partnerships offer substantial benefits for a variety of businesses, but that they also have vulnerabilities which have led to their misuse and even abuse through criminal activities, which I also discuss. I then analyse the deficiencies of the regulatory measures designed to tackle the abuses, including requirements to disclose participant identity and accounts, and anti-money laundering and tax evasion measures. Finally, I evaluate the use of a supplementary ethical framework to reduce the abuses, and examine how such a framework could be created. My analysis provides an understanding of the causes and consequences of partnership abuses and of how they can be overcome. This advances the ongoing debate in the UK over the abuse of partnerships and the wider issue of business transparency, and has implications for the many other jurisdictions in which UK partnerships operate and in which the abuses take place, as well as for jurisdictions which have similar partnership vehicles to those in the UK.\u0000General partnerships, limited partnerships, LLPs, money laundering, tax evasion, tax avoidance, regulation, ethics, transparency, accounts","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43012692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mandatory CSR Disclosure: An Empirical Analysis of UK Modern Slavery Statements","authors":"Luke Blindell","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021012","url":null,"abstract":"The Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires large firms doing business in the UK to disclose their efforts to prevent modern slavery within their global supply chains. This paper considers the extent to which companies have complied with the Act and provides an insight into engagement with its underlying objectives. This is achieved through a content analysis of the modern slavery statements published by 934 companies in 2016. As the largest systematic review of UK modern slavery reporting, this paper has international implications due to the globalized nature of modern slavery and the sizeable international shareholder base in large UK companies.\u0000Transparency, disclosure, non-financial reporting, disclosure-based regulation, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder, modern slavery act, modern slavery statement, forced labour","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45883462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blockchain Smart Contracts: A Socio-Legal Approach","authors":"Leonardo Peixoto Barbosa","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021010","url":null,"abstract":"Smart contracts are computer protocols that self-enforce encoded terms. They arguably allow for individual freedom and increased sovereignty from inconveniences. The enthusiasm goes as far as foreseeing that smart contracts will make contractual legal oversight obsolete. However, whereas contract law theory evolved to acknowledge the importance of flexibility and relationality, smart contracts activists defend the opposite direction, arguing for contractual rigidness and denial of social norms supporting complex transactions. This paper departs from this paradox to argue that (i) smart contracts based on existing technology are unlikely to thrive in complex contractual settings, and (ii) contextual analysis is important for LawTech’s propositions.\u0000Smart contracts, blockchain, system’s theory, social norms, transaction cost, flexibility, relationality, trust, co-operation, contractual governance","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43418155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ‘Rebirth’ of the EU as an Audit Legislator","authors":"Jesper Seehausen","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021013","url":null,"abstract":"In April 2014, important new audit legislation was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council, i.e. the 2014 Auditing Directive and the PIE Regulation. In the author’s opinion, the role of the EU as an audit legislator has significantly changed over time. More specifically, the new audit legislation indicates the ‘rebirth’ of the EU as an audit legislator. The article focuses on the role of the EU as an audit legislator, even though the EU also has an important role to play as an accounting legislator. The most important legislative acts when it comes to EU audit legislation are discussed. A number of important trends in EU audit legislation are also identified and discussed. These include an increased legislative focus on Public-Interest Entities (PIEs), a change from a ‘directive only’ to a ‘directive and regulation’ legislative paradigm, a legislative change from the ‘periphery’ to the ’core’ of auditing, ‘codification’ of provisions from the International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) in EU legislation as well as a discussion on a possible EU adoption of the ISAs.\u0000Auditing, audit legislation, 8th directive, green paper, financial crisis, auditing directive, pie regulation, public-interest entities (pies), international standards on auditing (ISAs)","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47930842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Internal Investigations in Compliance Matters: What Role for Legal Professional Privilege in Europe?","authors":"Thomas Kruessmann","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021014","url":null,"abstract":"Information is key to understanding possible wrongdoing in corporations. When allegations of wrongdoing occur, management often invites external counsel to conduct internal investigations because legal professional privilege is seen as crucial in protecting information. In the post-Brexit EU, the objective scope of such privilege is under debate while there is little alignment with developments in the UK. This paper will explore what the deepening divide in the understanding of legal professional privilege may mean. It proposes a policy model, summarizes recent developments in England and Germany and comes to some refined conclusions to serve a broader comparative analysis of internal investigations.","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42079086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bail-in: Do Italians Do It Better (or Worse, or Not at All)?","authors":"Pierre de Gioia-Carabellese","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021005","url":null,"abstract":"The bank insolvency, hinged upon the new resolutions tools, particularly the bail-in, with its controversial right, bestowed upon an administrative authority, to covert/ write off/reduce the creditor’s rights should the bank fail, has played havoc in some EU jurisdictions, such as Italy. In this country, where the banking system has been put under intense pressure in the last five years, the application of the new rules has been sui generis, in some cases with an apparent misapplication of the new legal framework. Additionally, the existence of some constitutional values in the Belpaese, where the savings are expressly protected, may suggest that the judicial authorities, particularly the Italian Constitutional Court, may in the future decide to be more courageous in the way some fundamental legal provisions should be interpreted in their relationship with the new framework.\u0000Bank insolvency, Bail-in, resolution tools, constitutional values, Italy, savings’ protection","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43345059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Origins, Evolution and Comparison of Moral Rights between Civil and Common Law Systems","authors":"Laura Moscati","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021002","url":null,"abstract":"The protection of moral rights embraces the now widespread personal sphere of copyright and originated much later than the economic exploitation of the work itself. Some of its components can be found in the English and German thought between the 17th and 18th centuries and, starting from the early 19th century, would have a substantial development through the contribution of both the French legal scholarship and case law. The legal foundations, in any case, date back to some codifications of the German area and to the earliest international treaties, making it a discipline that did not take into consideration the extent of the national territory. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relevance of the European models and their influence in Italy after the national Unification, in particular in the first decades of the 1900s. In fact, the international protection of moral rights takes root in Italy during the 1928 Rome Conference for the revision of the 1886 Berne Convention. The United States joined it only later, in 1989, with the Berne Convention Implementation Act (BCIA). Thirty years later, the Copyright Office published in April 2019 an extensive study about the American protection of moral rights. The document is studied in this paper in comparison with the European Directives and with the Copyright Directive definitively approved a few days before the Copyright Office document. While in the USA the interest in moral rights up to now rather limited seems to be increasing, in Europe the protection of moral rights risks being waned as it is handed down to individual countries with the explicit declaration that it is not the subject matter of the Directives.\u0000Moral rights, origins, codification, Europe, Italy, Berne Convention, international treaties, USA, EU Directives, Canada","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42383775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"After the GDPR: Cybersecurity is the Elephant in the Artificial Intelligence Room","authors":"Sara Degli-Esposti, Ester Mocholí Ferrándiz","doi":"10.54648/eulr2021001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2021001","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents an analysis of data protection authorities’ (DPAs) enforcement actions undertaken since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018. The analysis shows that corporations fail to adopt transparent data processing practices and appropriate technical and organisational measures to secure personal data. By focusing on two specific DPAs, the Spanish AEPD and the British ICO, we make practical suggestions on how to foster the healthy development of the European digital ecosystem and the deployment of trustworthy artificial intelligence in big data environments in the face of growing cybersecurity risks.\u0000Data protection law, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, ICO, AEPD, DPA, big data, compliance, supervisory authority, sanctions","PeriodicalId":53431,"journal":{"name":"European Business Law Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42546977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}