The national corporate laws are shaped by European principles in manifold ways. The most important means is the European legal harmonisation, particularly the company law directives. In the course of the legal harmonisation projects, a common fund of original European corporate law has evolved. This is complemented by the European legal forms, especially the European stock corporation “Societas Europaea” and the project of a European private company. The European corporate law is completed by the impact of the basic economic freedoms, besides the freedom of establishment especially by the principle of free movement of capital.

Closely connected to the European corporate law is the Europeanization of accounting and capital markets law. While the European accounting rules feature a number of common principles, due to a multitude of options granted to Member States as well as companies, they are far from full harmonisation. In contrast, since the implementation of the European Commission’s Financial Services Action Plan and the IAS-Regulation one can rightly speak of a uniformly regulated European financial market.

The Institute’s research focuses on system formation in European corporate law. Based on the existing acquis communautaire and the European Court of Justice’s extensive case law it is possible to identify general principles and standards, which are relevant for the harmonisation of European corporate law beyond the narrow wording of a certain legal act or the limited facts of a certain precedent. At the same time, it is important to disengage oneself from the national point of view and, within the framework of the European competition of legal systems and by way of legal comparison and economic analysis, delve into the differences and commonalities of European corporate laws at the level of the EU as well as the Member States.