Moving Serbian companies' seats to EU without administrative obstacles – Amendments to Company Law in 2017

The Ministry of Economy formed a working group in early April for the purpose of preparing amendments to the Company Law. The amendments might be presented to the National Assembly late this year, and one of the main new features will be the “green light” for mergers and absorptions of local companies with foreign ones, facilitated movement of a company's seat abroad, but also implementing heretofore unfamiliar forms – a European Company and a European Economic Interest Grouping.

The law is being amended partially in line with the demands of the EU accession negotiation Chapter 6, but also to remove obstacles encountered in the implementation of its latest version.

– They envisage the introduction of transnational mergers. This means that a Serbian business organization will be able to merge with or be absorbed in a European one, forming a new organization, whether in Serbia or a European country – Dusan Vuckovic, acting assistant to the minister of economy, announced.

– It will be possible to move a company's seat to one of the EU member-states without great administrative obstacles.

When it comes to solving the problems accrued in the years of implementation of the latest company law, they will be looking for a way for small shareholders to be better protected, but also to find a legal solution for the issue of forced company liquidation.

– The aim will be to protect minority shareholders in procedures of compulsory acquisition of shares – Vuckovic clarified.

– What happens is that someone initiates a complaint during the process, the process is then stopped and reinitiated after several months. The question then is whether the price from several months ago is still in effect or not. This needs to be regulated.

Ministarstvo privrede Republike Srbije

Company Law

European Company

European Economic Interest Group

Chapter 6

Chapter six

European integration

transnational merger of companies

Dusan Vuckovic

merging local companies with foreign companies

moving company seat abroad