Columbia Law School (LexBlog Germany)

In the public imagination, Wirecard was Germany’s biggest tech company success story – a €24 billion high-growth payment processor doing deals across the globe and pioneering new technologies.  While naysayers complained about its opaque corporate and financial practices and raised doubts about its business model, most observers admired its nimble approach to surmounting regulatory barriers...

These are exceptional times, and policymakers are taking exceptional measures in public health, public finance, monetary policy, and public law. Among the latter, of great relevance to corporate governance are the rules broadening governments’ powers to authorize large share block purchases (e.g., in Germany and Italy). Even stronger proposals are being aired, and in some...

Centros, a landmark 1999 decision by the European Court of Justice (now Court of Justice of the European Union or CJEU), has profoundly transformed European company law. Previously, many EU member states used the “real seat theory” to hinder regulatory arbitrage. Under this theory, a company had to incorporate pursuant to the procedures of the...