What are the (expected) advantages of setting up a European Company?
In the eyes of the Commission, the European Company Statute (ECS) will mean in practice, that companies established in more than one Member State will be able to merge and operate throughout the EU on the basis of a single set of rules and a unified management and reporting system. They will therefore avoid the need to set up a financially costly and administratively time-consuming complex network of subsidiaries governed by different national laws. In particular, there will be advantages in terms of significant reductions in administrative and legal costs, a single legal structure and unified management and reporting systems. The Ciampi report estimates that savings in terms of administrative costs may be up to 30 billion per year. Moreover, this new business form may have a value in publicity terms, as it indicates that this company is a real European undertaking thereby possibly removing e.g. psychological barriers. However, this optimistic view is not shared by everyone. Indeed, th
