Better coordinating content and further automating the interconnection of business registers within the EU are the main points in a proposal by MEP Kurt Lechner (EPP, Germany) in a resolution debated by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), on 1 June. Welcoming the green paper adopted by the European Commission on 4 November 2009 and its accompanying progress report, in the preamble the rapporteur underlines the importance of data provided by these registers: legal form, company headquarters, name, end of mandate, powers and contacts of legal representatives, accounting documents relating to each fiscal year and, where appropriate, the dissolving of the company. This is all key information for companies, creditors, commercial partners, lawyers and administrations, especially in cases of cross-border mergers, companies moving abroad or insolvency procedures. But such information is not sufficiently accessible because business registers managed nationally or regionally have neither harmonised content, relevance, nor even a harmonised research structure. The language is an additional problem.

ONE STOP SHOP

Compulsory standardisation of the available data and closer cooperation between the managers of these registers thus seems to be the solution to deal with these problems. This will prove to be all the more necessary once the European private company statute is adopted, underlines the report. The MEP refers to different cooperation mechanisms between registers that are already in place, the European Business Register, Business Register Interoperability Throughout Europe (BRITE) and the Internal Market Information (IMI) system, points to the optional nature of the first two mechanisms, the status of the BRITE research project and advocates making member states’ participation compulsory. He calls for additional measures that would constitute a one stop shop for information about companies from all over Europe, making it possible “to achieve time and money savings”. He suggests incorporating the European Business Register into the future e-justice portal for individuals, companies, lawyers and judicial authorities in a user-friendly way. Lechner also thinks that establishing a link between the network of business registers and the electronic network created due to the Transparency Directive 2004/109/EC (on the harmonisation of transparency obligations concerning information on issuers whose securities are allowed in a negotiation on a regulated market) will allow for easy access to legal and financial information about registered companies and will bring added value to investors.