Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Law - Comparative Legal Systems, Comparative Law, grade: Sehr Gut, University of Hamburg (Institut für Recht und Ökonomik), language: English, abstract: In the US it is principally the states that are in charge of regulating the internal affairs of corporations. States allow firms to relocate in other states. Hence, it is argued that states are engaging in a process of competing for corporate charters. In the EU this basic setting is today quite similar: the EU Member States have separately created their own corporate law systems for decades. Though only since the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in a series of famous decisions from Centros to Inspire Art that Member States have to recognize firms who are incorporated under other Member States’ corporate law, the possibility for regulatory competition in corporate is opened in the EU as well. Comparing the situations in Europe and America from a law and economics perspective, the guiding hypothesis of this thesis is that while regulatory competition in corporate law can lead to efficient results, several problems have to be taken into account. Inefficiencies in American and European regulatory competition in corporate law are mainly due to these problems. A possible normative solution to such inefficiencies is assessed. Other findings of this thesis involves the following aspects: Firstly, while regulatory competition in corporate law in the U.S. might have been economically efficient in the past, it now can be identified several factors that lead to suboptimal outcomes which can be explained positively by applying existing theories on the issue as complementary ones. Secondly, the European legal and economic situation resembles important factors of the American one while there are some major differences that will probably lead to different outcomes to those in the U.S. – though these are suboptimal as well. Thirdly, a normative conclusion is drawn from these comparative observations. It can be efficient to restructure the framework in which regulatory competition in corporate law takes place in both, the U.S. and the EU. It is proposed a form of procedural harmonization and a simplification of conflict of laws that will allow states to compete for separate modules of legal sectors in corporate law. Thus innovation and learning processes in corporate regulations will be easier comparable and a sustainable race to the top may begin.

"Regulatory competition within Europe and internationally, operates in several fields with different outcomes. This book offers a comparative legal and economic analysis of corporate, securities and competition law, exploring the reasons behind such differences. The books conceptual framework covers the most relevant drivers of competition, including legal actors incentives, channels of competition and governance design. It shows how the different drivers and institutional designs are shaping competitive interactions, drawing relevant conclusions for both general and field specific regulatory policy. Providing a comparative analysis of regulatory competition in three legal fields, this book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics in law, economics and political science, as well as policymakers legislator, regulator, judiciary at both national and European levels."--Publisher

The work challenges the commonly accepted idea that the European single market needs a harmonized company law as a precondition for its correct functioning, on the basis of a law and economics comparison with the American situation. The study critically analyzes the two major reasons advanced to justify harmonization - the race to the bottom argument and the standardization argument - on the basis of the regulatory competition paradigm and concludes that they are basically wrong. Instead of pursuing harmonization of substantive company law, the proposal is to adjust conflict of law rules in favor of the incorporation theory as ruled by the European Court of Justice in its important Centros-decision of March 1999. Companies should be granted freedom of establishment and free movement among jurisdictions in the European Union.

This article investigates the potential for regulatory competition within the legal framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). By comparing the legal structures of the EU and the EEU, this article outlines the ways in which regulatory competition is embedded in each of the legal frameworks of these integration areas. The empirical focus of this article is based upon the respective founding treaties, tax law and corporate law within each of the integration initiatives. The analysis shows that the EEU is attempting to emulate the integration process and the legal structures of the EU in several ways. However, due to the centralist tendencies within the EEU, there is little space for regulatory competition to emerge on the general institutional tier. The questions of whether and to what extent the EEU's legal framework will effectively enable regulatory competition are greatly dependent upon the particular area of law that is applied.

This anthology illustrates how law and economics is developing in Europe and what opportunities and problems – both in general and specific legal fields – are associated with this approach within the legal traditions of European countries. The first part illuminates the differences in the development and reception of the economic analysis of law in the American Common Law system and in the continental European Civil Law system. The second part focuses on the different ways of thinking of lawyers and economists, which clash in economic analysis of law. The third part is devoted to legal transplants, which often accompany the reception of law and economics from the United States. Finally, the fourth part focuses on the role economic analysis plays in the law of the European Union. This anthology with its 14 essays from young European legal scholars is an important milestone in establishing a European law and economics culture and tradition.

This book further develops both the traditional and the behavioural approach to competition law, and applies these approaches to a variety of timely issues. It discusses several fundamental questions regarding competition law and economics, and explores the applications of competition law and economics. In turn, the book analyses the interplay of intellectual property rights and patents in various aspects of competition law, and investigates the impacts that developments in information technology, such as big data analytics, have on competition law. The book also discusses the impact of energy law reforms on energy markets from a competition law perspective. Competition law is a classic field of economic analysis. This is largely due to the fact that competition law uses terms such as market, price, and competition and must therefore rely on economic know-how and analyses. In the United States, economic analysis has greatly influenced not just the scholarship on antitrust law, but also judicial decisions and agency enforcement. Antitrust law and economics are based on the traditional paradigm of neoclassical economics, which relies on the assumption that the market players, i.e. consumers and producers, are rational. This approach to competition law was later received in Europe under the banner of a “more economic approach”. For the past two decades, behavioural law and economics, which seeks to generate better insights into legal phenomena by providing more realistic psychological foundations for economic models, and to offer a multitude of applications in legislation and legal adjudication, has challenged the traditional economic approach to law in general and, more recently, to competition law specifically.

The idea of legal competition as a decentralized market process of law provision in which legal clubs compete, has earned an indisputable legitimacy among economists. This book presents a debate concerning the merits of and conditions for a competitive provision of law, with a special focus on institutions in Europe. The authors analyse three major aspects of the competitive provision of legal rules. First, the conditions under which citizens and firms arbitrate between the different legal orders are investigated. The book then goes on to analyse the supply aspect of the legal market and the consequences of the competitive pressures on the behaviour of the lawmakers. Finally, the conditions under which the State may efficiently control the process of law provision are discussed and justifications to its intervention are presented. A comprehensive study encompassing both private and public law, and applied and theoretical issues, this book will provide lively discussion and up-to-date research for students of law and economics, and an authoritative source of information for practitioners in the field of legal competition - in particular those specializing in European issues.