Structure of Regulatory Competition in European Corporate Law, The

In its opinions in the cases Centros, Uberseering and Inspire Art, the ECJ has begun to open European corporate law for regulaton of competition, as it has been discussed in the US for several ldecades. This article analyses the stuictual conditions of competition on the supply and demand sides of the market for corporate law, and the impact of supranational influence. In doing so, it identifies several factors that have received little attention in the incipient European debate. The supply-side analysis shows that a European Delaware is implausible because of the interdependence of competitive advantages and the incentives to compete. On the demand side, an anaysis of the effects of differences of financial structures indicates that a race to the bottom is more likely in Europe. The comparatively weak threat of supranational intervention in Europe makes actions and decision making an unlikely factor to affect the decisions of national actors