This fully updated new edition provides the best-known practical overview of the law regarding companies, business activities, and capital markets in Europe, at both the European Union (EU) and Member State levels. It incorporates analysis of recent developments including the impact of global initiatives in such aspects of the corporate environment as regulation of financial institutions and non-financial reporting obligations with a view to sustainability and other social responsibility concerns. The authors, all leading experts in European corporate law, describe current and emerging trends in such areas of corporate law practice as the following: - rules on cross-border mergers; - employee involvement in business activities; - the initiatives by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the EU to curb tax avoidance; - Member States’ implementation of EU legislation; - a company’s freedom to incorporate in a jurisdiction not its own; - competition among the legal forms of different Member States; and - safeguarding of employee involvement in cross-border transactions. With respect to national law, the laws of Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom are taken into account; Italy is now included in this new edition. As in earlier editions, the authors demonstrate that analysis and comparison of national corporate laws yield highly valuable general principles and observations, not least because business organizations, wherever located, tend to show a fundamentally similar set of legal characteristics. The Third Edition will continue to be of great value to practitioners and academics who wish to acquire a better understanding of European corporate law, in its supranational dimension as well as in the similarities and differences among the various national legal systems.

This successful textbook remains the only offering for students of European company law, and has been fully updated.

The book provides students of European company law courses, scholars and practitioners with an overview. Although company law remains mainly regulated at the level of national laws, it has become important to obtain a systematic view of the main directives in the field of company law, the EU Court of Justice’s jurisprudence, the European Model Company Act and the state of implementation of these directives in the member states of the Union. The book therefore contains, in addition to the illustration of the law laid down by EU legislative bodies and the related soft laws, detailed references to the most important domestic legislations and case laws, in order to make them known and usable as much as possible. Moreover, the book allows identifying the most relevant current legislative trends and the main historical reasons for divergences.

Despite the machinations accompanying the British decision to leave the European Union, the EU still remains a potent economic and political force on the international stage. American businesses, and their lawyers, cannot afford to ignore its institutions and law, because the Union is America's largest trading partner. While the book places the Union in its historical and jurisprudential context and parses its institutional and constitutional structure, its focus is squarely upon the exposition of business law. It introduces American law students and lawyers to substantive law of the Union focusing upon free movement (of goods, workers, the self-employed, cross-border service providers, business entities, and capital), competition law, merger control, state subsidies, and cross-border investment regulation. Although the presentation excerpts seminal cases in each area of business law, its format does not resemble the traditional law school casebook. The focus is upon exposition and explanation, with the authors (academics and practitioners) offering synthesis, analysis and context in each substantive area of law under observation.

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action. Completely revised and updated, with many newly written chapters, this fifth edition of the most thorough resource in its field provides the most comprehensive and systematic account available of the law of the European Union (EU). Written by a new team of experts in their respective areas of European law, its coverage incorporates and embraces many current, controversial, and emerging issues and provides detailed attention to historical development and legislative history of EU law. Topics that are constantly debated in European legal analysis and practice are touched on in ways that are both fundamental and enlightening, including the following: .powers and functions of the EU law institutions and relationship among them; .the principles of equality, loyalty, subsidiarity, and proportionality; .free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital; .mechanisms of constitutional change – treaty revisions, accession treaties, withdrawal agreements; .budgetary principles and procedures; .State aid rules; .effect of Union law in national legal systems; .coexistence of EU, European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and national fundamental rights law; .migration and asylum law; .liability of Member States for damage suffered by individuals; .competition law – cartels, abuse of dominant position, merger control; .social policy, equal pay, and equal treatment; .environmental policy, consumer protection, public health, cultural policy, education, and tourism; .nature of EU citizenship, its acquisition, and loss; and .law and policy of the EU’s external relations. The fifth edition embraces many new, ongoing, and emerging European legal issues. As in the previous editions, the presentation is notable for its attention to how the law relates to economic and political realities and how the various policy areas interact with each other and with the institutional framework. The many practitioners and scholars who have relied on the predecessors of this definitive work for years will welcome this extensively revised and updated edition. Those coming to the field for the first time will instantly recognize that they are in the presence of a masterwork that can always be turned to with profit and that helps in understanding the rationale underlying any EU law provision or principle.

? The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG This splendid book performs the heroic task of introducing readers to the large canvas of the commercial law of the European Union (EU). The EU began as an economic community of six nations but has grown into 27 member states, sharing a signi?cant political, social and legal cohesion and serving almost 500 million citizens. It generates approximately 30% of the nominal gross world product. The EU is a remarkable achievement of trans-national co-operation, given the history (including recent history) of national, racial, ethnic and religious hatred and con?ict preceding its creation. Although, as the book recounts, the institutions of the EU grew directly out of those of the European Economic Community, created in 1957 [1.20], the genesis of the EU can be traced to the sufferings of the Second World War and to the disclosure of the barbarous atrocities of the Holocaust. Out of the chaos and ruins of historical enmities and the shattered cities and peoples that survived those terrible events, arose an astonishing pan- European Movement.

This book covers the most important legal issues when conducting business abroad. The first part covers European law with a focus on the institutions of the European Union, the four freedoms and competition law. The second part focuses on individual international contracts. This part starts with the legal environment of the business transaction. The political and policy risks of doing business abroad are explained, as well as how they should be addressed. It continues with entry strategies in foreign markets and then goes on to focus on the individual contract of sale. A wide range of subjects are covered, including general conditions of sale, retention of title, the CISG, product safety and product liability, Incoterms, contract of carriage, jurisdiction, choice of law and arbitration, standard contract clauses and payment conditions. This book takes a practical approach and contains examples and exercises. The book does not pretend to be the ultimate guide: the field of international commercial law in particular is vast, and has many different angels. However, it does try to explain the main pitfalls of doing business in foreign countries and how to avoid them.

The relationship between environmentally sustainable development and company and business law has emerged in recent years as a matter of major concern for many scholars, policy-makers, businesses and nongovernmental organisations. This book offers a conceptual analysis of the principles of sustainable development and environmental integration in the EU legal system. It particularly focuses on Article 11 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which states that EU activities must integrate environmental protection requirements and emphasise the promotion of sustainable development. The book gives an overview of the role played by the environmental integration principle in EU law, both at the level of European legislation and at the level of Member State practice. Contributors to the volume identify and analyse the main legal issues related to the importance of Article 11 TFEU in various policy areas of EU law affecting European businesses, such as company law, insurance and state aid. In drawing together these strands the book sets out the requirements of environmental integration and examines its impact on the regulation of business in the EU. The book will be of great use and interest to students and researchers of business law, environment law, and EU law.

For many observers, the European Union is mired in a deep crisis. Between sluggish growth; political turmoil following a decade of austerity politics; Brexit; and the rise of Asian influence, the EU is seen as a declining power on the world stage. Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the opposite in her important new book The Brussels Effect: the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech. And in contrast to how superpowers wield their global influence, the Brussels Effect - a phrase first coined by Bradford in 2012- absolves the EU from playing a direct role in imposing standards, as market forces alone are often sufficient as multinational companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their global operations. The Brussels Effect shows how the EU has acquired such power, why multinational companies use EU standards as global standards, and why the EU's role as the world's regulator is likely to outlive its gradual economic decline, extending the EU's influence long into the future.

European integration has been most successful at a legal level and European influences have left an indelible mark on English Public Law. These influences must be understood by students and practitioners if they are to understand our public law and its continuing development. This new book aims to cover the debate surrounding the influence of Community law on the public law of the United Kingdom in a thematic and analytical manner.