The European Company under French Law: Main Features

Abstract

The Regulation and the Directive on the Statute for a European company introduce a new corporate structure under French law justifying the inclusion of new chapters in both the Commercial Code and Labour Code of France. In order to assess the merits of this new alternative, the benefits offered by the SE structure and regime need to be examined in comparison with existing corporate structures under French law, in particular the SA, which is the structure that the SE most resembles. This article reviews the main features of the SE as a legal entity under French law facilitating the formation of European groups. It also looks at reasons for choosing the French SE regime from the point of view of corporate and employment law. The SE is clearly most valuable in cases where the scope of business is European, in which context it can facilitate transnational mergers and joint operations, make the transfer of registered offices possible and serve as a model for streamlining the corporate governance of European groups. If, on the whole, the French legislator has proved conservative with regard to the SE, even in implementing the Directive on labour side, he has nevertheless granted the ‘French’ SE plenty of freedom in the statutes regarding the definition of relationships among shareholders.