PARTOWNEU · The dark side of partial ownership and financial investment in Europe: What price to pay for consumers and society?
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-01 → 2021-08-31
- EU contribution
- €191,852
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The dark side of partial ownership and financial investment in Europe: What price to pay for consumers and society?
What happens when you acquire a shareholding in a rival firm? Are you expected to continue competing on the market as before? While partial ownership is ubiquitous, its competitive implications are traditionally underplayed under the dogma ‘small is innocent’. Yet, this project asks: Is this EU legal position justified; to what extent; in what cases? Ultimately, what is the price for EU consumers or society to pay for any harmful effects of partial ownership beyond any efficiency gains? If the price is high, should Europe move up a gear? Or are there countervailing costs and trade-offs to be considered before deciding legal reform? With increasing stock market investing, financial intermediation and diversification, and “dispersed” ownership of public companies (with numerous minority shareholders) in Europe too, potential concerns gain new dimensions. EU policy may not just be inert but in a wrong direction: one-sided push for a Capital Market Union or increased shareholders’ rights may amplify the EU competition law problem. By means of legal, economic, and empirical analysis, the research aimed to explore the hidden costs and long-term consequences of partial ownership in the EU context and to assess whether there is a regulatory gap in Europe and if so, a solution is necessary and desirable. This research has offered a much-needed holistic examination of the problem bringing together different strands of scholarly literature (competition law and economics, corporate law and governance) in a meaningful new framework with practical policy application. It was concluded that the problem studied in Europe is significant and potentially producing anticompetitive effects under certain circumstances and that there is a need for updating the existing EU competition law framework and developing enforcement guidelines in line with the newly revealed dynamics.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
What happens when you acquire a stake in a rival firm? Are you expected to continue competing on the market as before? While partial ownership is ubiquitous, its competitive implications are traditionally underplayed under the dogma ‘small is innocent’. Yet, this project asks: Is this EU legal position justified; to what extent; in what cases? Ultimately, what is the price for EU consumers or society to pay for any harmful effects of partial ownership beyond any efficiency gains? If the price is high, should Europe move up a gear? Or are there countervailing costs and trade-offs to be considered before deciding legal reform? With increasing stock market investing, dispersed ownership of public companies and financial intermediation in Europe too, potential concerns gain new dimensions. EU policy may not just be inert but in a wrong direction: one-sided push for a Capital Market Union or increased shareholders’ rights may amplify the EU competition law problem. The research is set to explore the hidden costs and long-term consequences of partial ownership by examining both its different substantive (competition vs corporate law) and governance (EU vs national laws) aspects in the EU context. By means of economic, multi-level legal and empirical analysis the research aims to assess whether there is a regulatory gap in Europe and if so, a solution is necessary and desirable. The supervisor with his cross-disciplinary expertise (EU law; competition & corporate law) and stellar academics in my research areas (business law; finance/microeconomics) associated with LU provide an ideal setting for the project to be effectively implemented. The research will produce new scientific knowledge; training benefits for my future academic career and societal impact (policymaking; public awareness) for stakeholders and the EU economy and democracy. For the sake of all, Europe should bridge the knowledge gap and not be left behind, when action may come as ‘too little too late’.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- LUNDS UNIVERSITET · LundCoordinatorSweden
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union