The European Company : From a Swedish private company perspective

The development within the European Union is that we are heading towards a common internal market. The law has during the year become more harmo-nized within the Union in many areas. The company law within the European Union has become harmonized through several company law directives and the freedom of establishment, which is included in the EC Treaty. The aim of an internal market is about to be achieved, but there are still differences between the systems of law within the Member States. To avoid these differences within the area of company law a common European company type became reality in 2004, the European public limited-liability company. Companies within the European Union have the possibility to create a Euro-pean public limited-liability company (SE Company). The SE Company is mainly governed by the SE Regulation. The SE company has advantages like the possibility to move the registered office from one Member State to another without losing its legal personality. It can also make the company structure easier and relief administrative costs for a company with activity in the European Union. The company was supposed to be governed by one single set of rules, the SE Regulation, no matter where in the Union the company has its registered of-fice. This has not become reality since the SE Regulation on several occasions refers back to the national company law. The SE Company has not been a success, only a few SE companies have been created. The advantages do not seem to be that important reasons, the companies do not seem to think that it is worth the cost and the trouble to change type of company