Suchergebnisse

Companies have been able to adopt the statute of a European Company (Societas Europaea or SE) for some six years now.1In the meantime, a number of alternatives to the SE statute have emerged, including the cross-border merger and the proposal for a European Private Company (Societas Privata Europaea or SPE). This article shows that current SE legislation can be considered as the temporary pinnacle of employee involvement at EU level, with the main danger for employee participation rights seeming at present to come from European Court of Justice case-law on the freedom of establishment, which poses fundamental problems to participation.

Developments in company law in many cases have a significant impact on the interests of employees and their representatives. This article gives an overview of the implications of the 14 European directives and draft directives in this area. It also takes a closer look at the 13th Directive on public takeover bids, and goes on to examine developments in the field of corporate governance. What is the place for the workers in the current debate and the various codes of behaviour that have come into being? From the employee viewpoint the developments appear to be ambiguous. On the one hand, there are signs that employees are no longer regarded as serious stakeholders in the company. On the other, the 13th Directive, the proposed Tenth Directive on cross-border mergers, the SE (European Company) Directive on employee participation and other instruments make clear provision for participation by employee representatives.