Takeover law in the EU and the USA: A comparative analysis

Book abstract:

This work focuses on one particular aspect of the European legal labyrinth, takeover law. However, its scope allows it to expand in order to scrutinise the larger implications of the conflict over corporate chartering and regulated competition between states, as found in the federalist US, and the European Union's (EU) growing demands for harmonisation and integration. Although takeovers are often considered to foster greater economic productivity and competition, this book provides a comparative transatlantic analysis which exposes various complications, problems and questions. Indeed, a key question raised in the book is what will become the most efficient approach for European takeover law in the long run: regulatory competition or harmonisation? It is a question which itself, as the writer points out, gives rise to many others and to various implications for the economic status of Europe in the future.

The book consists of seven parts. After the introduction has dealt with clarifying the problem between harmonisation and regulatory competition, as well as the problems of research, terminology, and the issue of takeovers in the wider societal context, part two turns to the role of stakeholders in takeover bids. Part three compares European and US company law and assesses the EU's harmonisation program, questioning, for example, its necessity, and part four explores the state competition issue, in terms of its successes and limits. Part five addresses takeover law in respect of state competition, supplying the pertinent statutory provisions; part six tackles the specific tensions between regulatory competition and European harmonisation, and the conclusions in part seven call for an increased but more reflexive harmonisation of takeover law in the EU overall.

The book is aimed at practitioners, regulators and anyone interested in the areas discussed.