The Shifting Landscape of European Company Law

The European Union (EU) has recently placed itself at the vanguard of company law reform, first under the heading of ‘corporate sustainability’ and more recently still as part of its aim to boost the competitiveness of the EU economy. The movement between these policy objectives has created a rapidly evolving and dynamic European company law landscape. For example, the major corporate sustainability laws, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Due Diligence Directives, despite being only recently introduced, are now to be simplified and reduced in scope by Omnibus I. In addition, the Commission plans to introduce a range of positive interventions to boost the competitiveness of European companies, most notably through a 28th regime i.e. an EU specific business code. The aim of the regime would be to form a truly European company that can transcend the fragmented landscape of 27 different national frameworks and the barriers this creates within the single market. However, similar initiatives have been attempted before with limited success. This working paper discusses the recent developments in European company law, locates them within the area’s historical development and offers some analysis of the difficulties involved in the reform of European company law.