Lack of ambition
That lack of ambition has irked another set of stakeholders — startup founders and venture capital firms — which lobbied hard for the regulation.
“We try to focus on the positives,” said Andreas Klinger, an Austrian investor who, along with half a dozen other founders, championed the single corporate legal form. Their campaign even persuaded Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to adopt the U.S.-style “EU Inc.” rebrand of the proposal.
One hole in the proposal announced by McGrath on March 18 that Klinger sees is the lack of a Delaware-style disputes tribunal.
The blueprint to create a new interface for company law, while not seriously harmonizing labor, taxation, or insolvency standards, might miss the mark if the goal is to keep European founders from flocking to Delaware.
“It’s a very, very small improvement with close to zero macroeconomic impact. But it’s starting in the right range,” said Matthias Bauer, a researcher at ECIPE, a liberal economic policy think tank based in Brussels.
That EU Inc. will allow firms to skirt certain labor standards, while failing to harmonize rules on products, services, or tax, will keep it from being truly effective. “You would still have to hire an army of advisers,” added Bauer.
