Over the last decade, the time period that is also covered by the two editions of this book, European company law has been re-written completely. Virtually no EU measure remained unchanged and most of them have undergone fundamental reform. This is astonishing since almost half of these measures only came into existence after the turn of the millennium.

In the last five years ‘modern’ European company law has been characterized by a strong foundation of accounting law, i.e. the basic information scheme in international models (IFRS), the practicability and reality of cross-border mobility in its different types, the considerable success – at last – of European company types, namely in the form of the European Company which has been adopted by many blue chip companies, and finally by governance, governance and governance. The latter also experiencing a remarkable renaissance of shareholders’ rights, namely voting right schemes. In times of crisis this is the equipment with which the challenges have to be met.

This book discusses the EC/EU law first including all instruments through which it is transposed into the national law systems. However, where no EC/EU law exists, a comparative law discussion and policy aspects, namely law and economics, fill the gaps. The whole organism of (limited liability) company law is thus covered.

In addition to organization, accounting, finance and the closely related capital market law European Company Law covers the cornerstones of EC/EU corporate tax and insolvency law. This broad scientific perspective of the ‘European’ in company law remains unique and is of greatest value for top-level practice and highly-ranked policy discussions.