European Corporate Group Law - Forum Europaeum Konzernrecht
Theses and Recommendations for a European Corporate Group Law
The Forum Europaeum Konzernrecht (Forum Europaeum Corporate Group Law) is a group of numerous European legal scholars under the leadership of Hommelfhoff, Hopt and Lutter working in close cooperation with Doralt (Vienna), Druey (St. Gallen), and Wymeersch (Gent). Generously supported by the Thyssen Foundation since 1992, the Forum in 1998 devised theses and recommendations for a European corporate group law. The Forum Europaeum rejected a complete harmonisation and encouraged instead differentiated regulations grounded in part at a European level but more so at a member-state and business firm level. The recommendations have been conceived along a building block principle so that they need not necessarily be adopted en bloc by the European Commission and/or the Member States. The theses are in the meantime being discussed in all of Europe and beyond. Initially appearing in German (ZGR 1998, 672-772), the publishing of the recommendations and their explanatory statements in various languages has contributed to their accessibility. In 2000 a version was published in English: “Corporate Group Law for Europe”, Forum Europaeum Konzernrecht, Stockholm (Corporate Governance Forum) 2000 and also in the European Business Organization Law Review (EBOR) I (2000) 165-264. In the latter publication, Windbichler comprehensively addresses the recommendations of the Forum Europaeum Konzernrecht, and Kluver shows how the proposals of the Forum Europaeum and the Australian corporate law reform recommendations relate to one another. This contribution likely represents the first instance of an extensive dialogue between continental Europe and Australia in the field of corporate law.