Description of a European company

A European company has the following features:

• the business company must have the suffix SE
• a registered European company (SE) must be located in the territory of the EU. In principle it is the choice of the founders as to which member state they want to locate the registered office of the established European company (it does not matter in which member state the founding company has its registered office), however, the SE registered office must be in the same state and the actual registered office
• SE (societas europaea) can only have a single-level model of management, where the company is headed by an administrative board with a minimum of three members. Alternatively, the European company (SE) may have a dualistic management model - i.e. the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board. These two bodies can have an arbitrary number of members.
• • the registered capital of the European (SE) is, similar to a joint-stock company, divided into shares and must have a minimum level of 120,000 EURO or equivalent

METHODS OF FOUNDATION

A key feature of a European company is the restriction on the method of foundation. The Directive of the EC Council on European companies (2157/2001) specifies the legal form of subjects which may establish a European company, contains the requirement for the supra-national element in the foundation process and enumerative state methods for SE foundation into the following five options:

1. fusion of two or more joint-stock companies or European companies
2. creation of a holding European company with two or more joint-stock companies or European companies or limited-liability companies
3. creation of a subsidiary of the European company (joint-venture European company)
4. transformation of the joint-stock company according to the rights of any member of an EU state
5. as a subsidiary of an already existing European company

The final enumerative option enables us to create for our clients an offer for ready-made SE, which originates as a subsidiary of an already existing in-house European company. The advantage of repurchasing a ready-made European company (SE) from our offer is the fact that the owner of the ready-made SE may also become a person who cannot establish a European company due to the above-mentioned reason or it would be very costly and complicated for such person.