Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Company law'

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.

There are many Swedish companies active on the Chinese market, since China’s accession to the WTO the year 2001 China has gotten even more interesting. China’s WTO accession does not only make it easier for Swedish companies to be present in China, it also provides Chinese companies an increased opportunity to access the Swedish market. Currently Chinese companies active in Sweden only counts for a small share of the total amount of the foreign companies present in Sweden, while there are several Swedish companies present in China.

The Chinese legislation for the various entities is extensive. Just as in Sweden, China applies a civil law system with a written constitution. While China is a communistic one-party state Sweden is democratic nation with several parties. The communistic legacy is reflected in the Chinese legislation. There are several types of entities that appeals to a foreign investor in the Chinese legislation while there in the Swedish legislation only exist one kind of entity that counts as a legal person with limited liability. In both nations there exists the possibility of establishing a Representative Office however it is not allowed to conduct any kind of profit making business. There is in neither state any severe obstacles from establishing a company, there is only a demand for residency within the EEA in the Swedish legislation. According to many Swedish companies present in China it seems that bureaucracy in China is the major difficulty, it is perceived as complicated and time-consuming

For foreign companies it is important to respect the culture in the foreign country. The Chinese culture is different from the western and there are some concepts that are valuable to be familiar with. Guanxi can be compared to having a powerful network which may perform miracle with the time-consuming Chinese bureaucracy and mianzi which is more than just having a good reputation. How the company is perceived is highly important in China.

Företagsskandalerna i slutet av 1990-talet och början av 2000-talet förde fram debatten om bolagsstyrning i ljuset. De stora krav på omdöme och uppförande som krävs av bo-lagsledningar för att rätt förvalta andra människors pengar förstärker väsentligheten av att det finns verksamma incitament för företagsledningarna att fullgöra sina skyldighe-ter. Som ett resultat av dessa skandaler tillsatte regeringen Förtroendekommissionen, vars uppgift var att arbeta fram åtgärder för att stärka förtroendet för det svenska när-ingslivet. Ett år senare tillsattes Kodgruppen, och det slutliga resultatet av Kodgruppens arbete är den svenska kod för bolagsstyrning som idag ingår i Stockholmsbörsens noter-ingskrav.

Att i valet mellan lagstiftning och självreglering, beslutet ändock föll på självreglering genom kod, har sin förklaring i självregleringens flexibilitet, snabbhet och anpassnings-barhet till de olikartade förhållanden som råder inom svenskt näringsliv. Koden är dess-utom semidispositiv genom principen comply or explain, vilket innebär att ett bolag kan välja att inte följa Kodens regler, bara de kan förklara orsaken till varje enskild avvikel-se. Att avvika från Kodens regler kan i vissa fall vara en förutsättning för att god bo-lagsstyrning ska kunna anses vara för handen.

Då Kodens regler faller inom ABL:s naturliga tolkningsområde fungerar Koden som ett utfyllande tolkningsinstrument beträffande bolagsledningars skadeståndsansvar. Detta är möjligt genom att Koden konkretiserar det ansvar som bolagsledningen genom sin vårdplikt har gentemot bolaget. För de oäkta bolagsorgan som instiftats enligt reglerna i Koden, bedöms ansvaret olika beroende på vilken ställning inom bolagshierarkin de an-ses inta. Det oäkta bolagsorganet valberedningen och dess ledamöter är, på samma sätt som styrelsens ledamöter, sysslomän för bolaget. Mot denna bakgrund är det därför vik-tigt att berörda parter; bolaget självt samt aktieägare och tredjeman, kan göra ansvar gäl-lande mot culpös ledamot av valberedningen. Att beskriva övriga oäkta bolagsorgan; revisionsutskottet och ersättningsutskottet, som egna organ är delvis missvisande då det endast är fråga om en delegering av uppgifter inom styrelsen och inte inrättandet av ett nytt organ, såsom fallet är med valberedningen. Ansvaret ska således bedömas på sam-ma grunder som vid övrig arbetsfördelning inom styrelsen.

Avsaknaden av en officiell instans som bevakar och godkänner de förklaringar företa-gen lämnar till sina avsteg från Koden, medför att det istället har blivit marknadens sak att bedöma, och indirekt utdöma sanktioner mot, de förklaringar som lämnas och som inte håller en acceptabel kvalité. Resultatet av principen comply or explain, eller snarare bristen på bevakning av förklaringarna, medför att Koden inte blir det skärpande verk-tyg för svensk bolagsstyrning som det var tänkt från början.

The company scandals in the late 1990s and early 21st century brought attention to the debate of corporate governance. The demand for good judgement and good behaviour by corporate executives in order to manage the money of other people, enhances the need for effective incentives in order to make the executives fulfil their obligations. As a result of these scandals, the Swedish government appointed Förtroendekommissionen, whose task was to work out measures to enhance the confidence of Swedish economy. A year later Kodgruppen was appointed, and the final result of their work is the Swed-ish code of corporate governance that now is a part of the Stockholm stock exchange rules.

The reason, in the choice between legislation and self-regulation through a code, that the choice became self-regulation is the flexibility, rapidity and adaptability to the dif-ferent conditions in the Swedish economy that this regulation possesses. The Swedish code of corporate governance is also semi optional through the principle comply or ex-plain, which means that a company is allowed to choose not to observe all the rules in the Code, provided that they are able to explain the reason for each of the deviations. To differ from the Code can even, in some circumstances, be a requirement for good corpo-rate governance.

When the rules of the Code fits under the natural interpretation area of the Swedish lim-ited liability company law, the Code works as a tool in the interpretation about the li-ability for the corporate executives. This is possible because the Code makes the liabil-ity of the executives real, this through their duty to take good care of the company. The unauthorized company bodies that are founded according to the rules of the Code, are being judged differently depending of their position in the company hierarchy. The un-authorized company body called election board, and its members, are in the same way as the members of the board, trustees of the company. Considering this, it is important that involved parties such as the company itself, their shareholders and third parties, have the possibility to claim liability of a member of the election board that has been neglecting his duties. To describe all of the other unauthorized company bodies, such as the audit committee and the compensation committee, as independent company bodies are partly misleading, because it is only a matter of delegation of tasks within the board, and not the founding of a new body, as it is in the case with the election board. The li-ability is therefore to be judged after the same preferences as in other delegation of tasks within the board. The fact that there is no official authority that monitors and approves the explanations given by the companies of why they do not follow the guidelines given by the Code, has the consequence that it is up to the market to decide whether the explanation has a qual-ity that can be approved. The market will also be the one that punish companies who has explanations of poor quality. The use of the principle comply or explain, or rather the lack of monitoring its explanations, has as a consequence that the Code will not be-come the sharpening tool for Swedish corporate governance that it was supposed to be in the original idea.

This thesis examines the effects from Directive 2009/49/EC. This directive amend the Fourth and Seventh Company Directives, the Accounting Directives, regarding the information that Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) have to present in notes connected to both the annual reports and notes to the consolidated accounts, in situations with subsidiaries when its necessary to draw up consolidated accounts.

The Accounting Directives does not affect all companies, almost only private limited liability companies, is this type of companies the only one discussed. Directive 2009/49/EC is not affecting all sizes of private limited liability companies within the European Union, since the most important reason for implementing it is to give SMEs less administrative burden by lower requirements regarding the information presented in notes attached to the reports.

The implementation of Directive 2009/49EC is a positive change since it is in line with the idea of an Internal Market with equal rights and obligations to all sized of limited liability companies, private or public. The lower obligations in the annual reports in the Fourth Directive are for SMEs to the better because of the less administrative burden and the loss of information for interested is not more important, but of course, for some it is crucial. Amending the Seventh Directive may have larger effect to some companies, most likely medium-sized SMEs, since the obligation to draw consolidated accounts will for some companies not be necessary.

There are no set guidelines on how to interpret the criteria’s in the adjustment rule within the meaning of the companies act. The criteria’s are not discussed in literature and the Swedish case law in this area is very limited. A reason for the limited use of the adjustment rule is the slow and very costly process, which does not grantee the outcome of the case. Because of the lack of case law regarding damages and the adjustment rule it has not been up for discussion. The responsibility of a CEO or member of the board is a very central part in a working company. The rules for damages must therefore work as an incitement for a member of the board or CEO to show care and make decisions the very best of interest of the company. All types of companies involve some form of risk taking. The rules within the companies act shall not discourage the board or CEO to make well calculated decisions that in the end can become a loss-making deal.

The adjustment rule in the companies act is written in very general terms. This is because of the large type of situations that can occur in a company. Sweden’s and the rest of Scandinavia’s legal systems are very much alike. To try and understand how the adjustment rule is supposed to be processed; a comparison is going to be made with another Nordic country’s equivalent rule, in this case Denmark. This can shed more light on how to interpret the adjustment rule within the meaning of the companies act, and if there are any differences between the two countries in the usage of this rule. If there are any differences, is the difference more beneficial seen to the person who has caused the damage?

There are only minor differences between the two countries and the usage of the rule. However these differences can be seen at more beneficial to the person who has inflicted the damage, when using Denmark’s adjustment rule.