How and where is cross-border corporate mobility taking place within the EU?
Since 2019 and the adoption of the Cross-Border Mobility Directive (EU) 2019/2121, corporate mobility in the form of cross-border mergers, divisions and conversions has been harmonized throughout the EU. This topic of cross-border company mobility has been on the EU legislator’s agenda for several decades. However, only in the last twenty years through the creation of European company law forms, such as the European Company (Societas Europeae, SE), legislation on cross-border mergers – the Cross-Border Mergers Directive (“CBMD”) – and the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) has EU integration accelerated in this area.
The project is, in short, a data collection exercise concerning company mobility within the EU/EEA using these instruments: European companies (SE, SCE), cross-border mergers, cross-border seat transfers and cross-border divisions. Data therefore is collected on these instruments for all 27 EU Member States and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, as well as the UK. The CbCM project collects data since 2017 and has collected data going back until 2000.
When considering new legislation and evaluating existing legislation, also in relation to the protection of different stakeholders in corporate mobility transactions, such as shareholders, creditors or employees, a crucial question is to what extent companies use cross-border mobility mechanisms in practice, may it be concerning cross-border seat transfers/conversions, cross-border mergers, cross-border divisions or the activities of SE/SCE companies.
Whilst this project titled ‘Cross-border Corporate Mobility in the EU’ (CbCM) does not claim to provide a full picture, it attempts to collect all transaction data on European company law forms as well as cross-border mergers, divisions and cross-border conversions and its impact on stakeholder rights.
The project reports can be accessed here via SSRN open access:
- Cross-Border Corporate Mobility in the EU: Empirical Findings 2021
- Cross-Border Corporate Mobility in the EU: Empirical Findings 2020
- Cross-Border Corporate Mobility in the EU: Empirical Findings 2019 (Vol. 2)
- Cross-Border Corporate Mobility in the EU: Empirical Findings 2019 (Vol. 1)
- Cross-Border Corporate Mobility in the EU: Empirical Findings 2018
- Cross-Border Corporate Mobility in the EU: Empirical Findings 2017