Volume 11, Issue 2


A SHIFTING PARADIGM OF EUROPEAN COMPANY LAW?

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 219 (2005) Kubler, Friedrich. Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Professor Emeritus, University of Frankfurt. I. THE EUROPEAN COMPANY LAW REGIME A. The Basic Model Traditionally, company law on the European continent has been quite different from the structures which have evolved in the U.S. The various national systems differ in many ways, but there appears to exist a common pattern that shows its own distinct features. This pattern appears particularly obvious in Germany; thus I will use the German system as a starting point for my inquiry without always explaining how the […]


CREATING EUROPEAN RIGHTS: NATIONAL VALUES AND SUPRANATIONAL INTERESTS

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 241 (2005) Francesca Bignami. Associate Professor, Duke University School of Law. Contemporary democracies are undergoing a radical transformation: public authority is migrating from the national realm to the global arena. The institutions through which we seek to protect ourselves from physical violence, promote economic prosperity, keep the environment clean, and further the other attributes of the good life are now as much global as national. Domestic legislatures, executive branches, courts, and administrative agencies do not decide alone. They are constrained by the decisions of international bureaucrats, they abide by the rules adopted by transnational networks […]


EUROPEAN COMPETITION LAW, JOINT DOMINANCE, AND THE WIRELESS OLIGOPOLY PROBLEM

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 355 (2005) Patrick S. Ryan. Attorney, PSR Law Firm, LLC, Denver, Colorado. INTRODUCTION Governments in both the United States and Europe have been in the process of deregulating telecommunications, thus letting go of the idea that telecommunications monopolies are necessary (in accordance with the defunct pre-1980s belief that the telecommunications industry was a “natural monopoly”). Instead, these governments have embraced modern economic trends, which stipulate that consumers benefit when a market has multiple competitors. In this essay, we will consider whether this deregulation in the wireless market may create anticompetitive situations of “joint dominance” or […]


BURNED IN THE USA: SHOULD THE MUSIC INDUSTRY UTILIZE ITS AMERICAN STRATEGY OF SUING USERS TO COMBAT ONLINE PIRACY IN EUROPE?

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 375 (2005) Amanda M. Witt. Associate at Lord, Bissell & Brook, LLP, studied law at Emory University School of Law (JD, 2000), and received her LLM at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (LLM, International Intellectual Property, 2004). The “digital age” has arrived in the music industry. The fact that technical terms such as “peer-to-peer” and “MP3” have become part of the vernacular and software companies such as Napster and KaZaA have become infamous indicate how relevant technology is in today’s music world. The music industry is currently waging a battle against digital music piracy, first initiating […]


THE CONSTITUTION FOR EUROPE: FICTION OR REALITY?

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 465 (2005) Koen Lenaerts. Judge of the European Court of Justice; Professor of European Law, Leuven University (Belgium). THE PAST FIFTY YEARS The perspective of the biggest enlargement in EU history-so far and probably forever-prompted the Member States to reassess the Union’s working and decision- making procedures. The seeds of the Constitution go further back, however, to the aftermath of the Maastricht Treaty and the expressions of hostility or indifference that occurred in the process of its ratification. While Maastricht was supposed to mark a new milestone in European integration through the establishment, at least […]


EC LABOR LAW: DO MEN BECOME FATHERS?

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 413 (2005) Susanna Eneteg. LL.M., 2005, Columbia University law School, Juris kandidat, 2000, Stockholm University Faculty of Law. This note will discuss the way EC labor law has dealt with the “parenting at the workplace dilemma;” in other words, what is the legal situation for a mother and father in the European Community? The focus of this note is the Community’s view of the mother and father in their respective roles as caretakers of children within the framework of labor law. Initially, the discussion will focus on the theories underlying sex equality and parental law. […]


CASE LAW: JOINED CASES C-2/01 P and C-3/01 P. BUNDESVERBAND DER ARZNEIMITTEL-IMPORTEURE e.V. AND COMMISSION v. BAYER AG (E.C.J. JANUARY 6, 2004)

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 437 (2005) Silke Brammer. Researcher, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. This case concerns two appeals lodged by the Commission and the Bundesverband der Arzneimittel-lmporteure e.V. (“BAr’) against the judgment of the Court of First Instance (CFI) of 26 October 2000 in case T-41/96 Bayer v. Commission’ by which the CFI had annulled the ADALAT decision of the Commission. The latter had fined Bayer for infringement of Article 81 EC.’ The European Court of Justice (ECJ) upheld the judgment of the CFI. This ruling is of particular relevance as it confirms the clarifications of the term ‘agreement’ within […]


BOOK REVIEW: THE CHURCH AND THE CONSTITUTION FOR EUROPE: ON THE MARGIN OF JOSEPH WEILER’S “UN’ EUROPA CRISTIANA”

11 Colum. J. Eur. L. 451 (2005) Un’ Europa cristiana – Un saggio esplorativo.Milano: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 2003. Pp 208. Eric Stein. Hessel E. Yntema Professor of Law, Emeritus, University of Michigan Law School. Europeans delight in historical controversies with current political implications-angry, often personal, and quickly forgotten. The “Historikerstreit” (the quarrel of historians) of the 1980s about the proper place of the Holocaust in German history is one example. Although the debate over the inclusion of a reference to the Christian heritage of Europe in the Preamble to the new Constitution for Europe has some of the earmarks of such a […]