Cross-border Corporate Mobility in the EU
| When: | March 2017 - March 2020 |
| Topic: | Cross-border company mobility |
| Title: | 'Cross-border corporate mobility in the EU' |
How and where is cross-border corporate mobility taking place within 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 decade 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.
Project leaders:
Thomas Biermeyer and Marcus Meyer
The project is financed by:
- the European Trade Union Institute
- the European Commission (Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Project Grant | EAC/A03/2016)
Concluding conference on Cross-border Corporate Mobility in the EU
Harnessing empirical data to explore the impact of corporate mobility in Europe
On 26.09.2019 the concluding conference of the Jean Monnet project (EAC/A03/2016) on cross-border corporate mobility in the EU took place at the UM Campus Brussels. The conference was organised in collaboration with the ITEM and ICGI Institutes, with prof. Mieke Olaerts opening the conference with a core question of the subject matter: “Is there indeed a need to protect stakeholders or is Europe overprotective and in that way hindering an EU without borders?”.
Download the summary of the conference
When considering new legislation and 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, cross-border mergers, cross-border divisions or the activities of SE/SCE companies.
Different studies and research exercises have been undertaken in this area, yet, none of which has been able to provide a full picture as to the extent of corporate mobility in the EU.
Whilst also this project titled ‘Cross-border Corporate Mobility in the EU’ (CbCM) will not claim to provide a full picture, it will attempt to continue the collection of data in areas in which data previously has already been gathered (SEs, cross-border mergers) and aims to shed light on new areas, such as data collection in the area of cross-border transfers of the registered office of a company (seat transfer) or cross-border divisions.
The project will be, 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 will be collected on these instruments for all 28 EU Member States and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The data will be collected from 2017 onwards until at least 2020. Following the successful award of a Jean Monnet grant by the European Commission, the project has been extended to also cover the period starting from 2000. The project monitors now the period 2000 until 2020.
Cross-border Corporate Mobility in the EU
Advisory council
Methodology
Report Empirical Findings 2020 (Ed. 1)
Report Empirical Findings 2019 (vol. 2)
Report Empirical Findings 2019 (vol. 1)
Report Empirical Findings 2018
Report Empirical Findings 2017
Read more:
Second report on corporate mobility in the EU published (September 2018)
Thomas Biermeyer and Marcus Meyer publish first report on corporate mobility in the EU (February 2018)
Jean Monnet grant for ITEM/ICGI research project about cross-border corporate mobility in the EU (August 2017)
ITEM/ICGI start new research project on cross-border corporate mobility in the EU (April 2017)
Project team
The project is led by Thomas Biermeyer and Marcus Meyer at Maastricht University. Both have a track record of research including the compilation of empirical data in the area of cross-border corporate mobility.
To ensure a high level of expertise for each EU/EEA country, an advisory board with country experts for each jurisdiction is formed. The experts are approached if the project coordinators have a specific question concerning national rules or similar. See also more information about the project methodology here.
The data extraction from the transaction documents and the entry into the dataset is carried out by the project leaders together with Osman Abdi, André Bornancim, Thomas Devine, Henna Jaakkola, Diego Gonzáles Manso, Andreyan Nedyalkov, Mátyás Szabó, Jan Przerwa and Nathalie Zurel as research assistants.
For this project, collaboration exists with the Institute for Corporate Law, Governance and Innovation Policies (ICGI) next to the Institute for Transnational and Euregional cross border cooperation and mobility (ITEM). Professors Mieke Olaerts and Stephan Rammeloo are senior advisors to the project to ensure a high level of quality for the research output.
About Thomas Biermeyer
Thomas Biermeyer researches and publishes on the topic of cross-border corporate mobility. He has written his dissertation on the topic of stakeholder protection in cross-border company seat transfers, has led the European Commission study on the application of the Cross-Border Mergers Directive and collaborates on corporate law studies for the European Parliament. His research expertise is focused on gathering comparative legal information as well as empirical (quantitative) elements. Furthermore, Thomas Biermeyer works as a lawyer advising listed and unlisted companies in the area of cross-border corporate transactions, including cross-border mergers, seat transfers and the setting up of SEs. He has been a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School, Oxford University and Paris 1 – Sorbonne.
About Marcus Meyer
Marcus Meyer’s primary research focus is on employee participation issues in multinational corporations, both under national and EU law. His dissertation research is primarily of an empirical nature and includes a large quantitative sample based on a questionnaire as well as qualitative research by means of semi-structured interviews with management, supervisory board and works council representatives. Having participated in a number of research projects on cross-border mergers, he also has a strong interest in corporate governance issues.
ITEM/ICGI project Cross-border Corporate Mobility in the EU
Fifth report on corporate mobility in the EU published
The full report is available via SSRN .
Etui is financially supported by the European Union. the European Union is not responsible for any use made of the information contained in this publication.
