Spaces and Places: A Systems Theory Approach to Regulatory Competition in European Company Law

44 Pages Posted: 17 May 2006

See all articles by Peer C. Zumbansen

Peer C. Zumbansen

McGill University, Faculty of Law; King's College London - The Dickson Poon School of Law

Date Written: May 16, 2006

Abstract

This article takes issue with the longstanding oppositional themes of harmonisation versus regulatory competition in European company law. Instead of embracing one approach over the other in exclusivity, the article draws attention to the persisting mixture of approaches to an emerging European-wide law regulating the business corporation. Against the background of an ongoing struggle over identifying the goals and taboos of the European legislator's mandate in regulating the company, the argument put forward here is that this very struggle is reflective of the nature of the evolution of company law in an 'integrating Europe and a globalising world'. European attempts of developing European company law as part of a larger initiative of improving the Union's potential for innovation and competition are thus likely to meet with the challenges that contemporary Nation States are facing when adapting their modes of regulation and representation to the demands of an increasingly complex and decentralised fields of market activities. Situating the law of the business corporation within the larger theme of European integration on the one hand, and of issues of market regulation, domestic, transnational, and international, on the other, suggests the adoption of a systems theory-based approach to understanding the boundaries of law in this multilevel and multipolar process.

Keywords: European Company Law, Regulatory Competition, Harmonization, Societas Europaea, Takeover Law, Corporate Governance

JEL Classification: G34, K22, K33

Suggested Citation

Zumbansen, Peer C., Spaces and Places: A Systems Theory Approach to Regulatory Competition in European Company Law (May 16, 2006). CLPE Research Paper No. 9/2006, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=902695 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.902695

Peer C. Zumbansen (Contact Author)

McGill University, Faculty of Law ( email )

3644 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1W9
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.mcgill.ca/law/

King's College London - The Dickson Poon School of Law ( email )

Somerset House East Wing
Strand
London, WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
398
Abstract Views
3,053
Rank
135,981
PlumX Metrics