Marlies Hoercherl, Associate, Corporate & Commercial
Last week I was in Hamburg, speaking at a Consulegis seminar of lawyers from across Europe.
They were a fascinating bunch to chat to, not least because (on a purely personal level) they do the same job as me but in different countries, under different laws and within different cultures. And it’s not every day you get to hear at first hand how overseas equivalents are dealing with the day-to-day challenges presented by this gloomy recession.
It quickly became clear that the credit crunch issues UK lawyers have been dealing with for some time now - redundancies, bad debt, insolvency - are only just emerging in mainland Europe. But everyone is anticipating the sort of increase in employment law and insolvency work we’ve just experienced in the UK.
French lawyers are being challenged by employee strikes against termination of employment, coupled with MD-kidnapping. I hear that many bosses now carry their toothbrushes and pyjamas in their briefcase, just in case their workforce detains them.
In Germany, the notoriously severe insolvency law has been changed to give businesses more flexibility. German companies are now no longer under a strict obligation to start a formal insolvency process if they can show that they can realistically trade through a rough patch. But this change is only temporary and will revert back to the stricter law in a couple of years - an indication perhaps that the German government is fairly optimistic that the credit crunch will be well and truly over by then? Let’s hope so.
And, while we continue to ride out the storm, it may be some comfort to hear that the European delegates were all hugely enthusiastic about co-operating in innovative ways to help businesses expand internationally –something which will be made even easier, particularly for SMEs, when the new European private limited company comes into being in 2010. Language, business and jurisdictional barriers to cross-border transactions and structures are a thing of the past.
Consider my spirits well and truly lifted.
For further information please contact Marlies Hoecherl. T:029 2047 4461 E: m.hoecherl@capitallaw.co.uk
