The many facets of “Group Law”

• Autor(a) principal: Windbichler, Christine
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• DOI: 10.34632/catolicalawreview.2019.9114
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/catolicalawreview.2019.9114

Corporate groups are the normal way to do business. The individual companies forming the group have legal personality; the structure is a product of private law and benefits from private and organizational autonomy. Attempts in corporate law and other fields to cope with group-specific problems remain piecemeal and sometimes even contradictory. Whereas corporate law honours the legal personality of the individual companies, other areas of law treat the group as a unit. Corporate groups as such are neither good nor bad; they serve venerable purposes and provide for organizational options which the stand-alone company cannot offer. Subsidiaries function as pre-determined breaking points for spin-offs and asset deals. The plurality of legal entities allows coordination by contract and by organization. Treating the group as a unit lends itself to unwanted side effects. Legal scholarship should recognize, harmonize, and develop the strategies to finely calibrate laws and standards reflecting group situations.