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Dear Dr. Ecommerce

Having heard of the "kleine AG" or "small limited company", I was wondering where I can get detailed information about this Europe-wide recognised form of corporation?

Allan

Dear Allan:

In general, companies are still registered in a particular country, rather than at a European Institution (but see below), and each country has its own legal definition of business types. "AG" or "Limited Company", for example, are legal terms defining the liability of the company. Company law still varies from country to country even within the European Community.

There has been some experimentation with with a European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIG) which is similar to the British Partnership. EEIG. EEIGs are defined in the "Communication from the Commission Participation of European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) in public contracts and programmes financed by public funds" as:

"The EEIG is a flexible and light structure which enables its members to interlink some of their economic activities while retaining their economic and legal independence. The formation of an EEIG gives rise to an independent legal entity with legal capacity whose purpose is to facilitate or develop its members' economic activities and to improve or increase the results of those activities.

This definition shows that the objective pursued by those who conceived this instrument is to promote transnational cooperation between firms at European level through the development of a common activity that is ancillary to their own activities.

The EEIG is similar to a partnership (or 'société en nom collectif`, 'offene Handelsgesellschaft`) in that, for example, its members have unlimited joint and several liability for its debts (see point II.5). However, the EEIG has features which are peculiar to more structured forms of companies: for example, it has the capacity to act in its own name through managers who can be appointed independently of their status as members (5) on the basis of a rule which applies generally to limited companies."

We also use the term "Small and Medium Sized Enterprise" (SME) to define a company of a particular size and turnover. For our definition of SME, please take a look at http://www.ispo.cec.be/ecommerce/sme/definition.html. You can also find other information about and for SMEs on the navigation bar on that page.

Dr. Ecommerce