6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 167 (2000) Dr. Rosa María Lastra. Senior Lecturer in Law, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. The Euro was introduced on schedule on January 1, 1999. The European System of Central Banks, which started operations on June 1, 1998, is now in charge of the monetary policy of the eleven Member States that have qualified for monetary union. However, the success of the launch of the Euro, with no major payment and settlement problems during the conversion weekend, and the smooth operation of the System so far, should […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 181 (2000) Karsten Engsig Sørensen. Professor, Ph.D., LL.M. Department of Law, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark Mette Neville. Professor, Ph.D., Department of Law, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark. AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED 14TH EC COMPANY LAW DIRECTIVE ON THE TRANSFER OF THE REGISTERED OFFICE OF A COMPANY FROM ONE MEMBER STATE TO ANOTHER WITH A CHANGE OF APPLICABLE LAW For many years, efforts have been made to establish a single market without internal frontiers or barriers in the European Union (EU). In spite of this, it has not been possible to this day to […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 209 (2000) Silvana Sciarra. Professor of European Labor and Social Law, EUI Florence and University of Florence Law School. The sequence of European Council meetings and their conclusions is a visible sign of how the slow and yet continuous process of integration materializes and produces tangible results. The unclear and often obscure jargon adopted in official documents may at times appear self-referential and repetitive. It may, however, serve the purposes of introducing new targets into national governments agendas and opening new fields to political intervention. A word or phrase may catch public attention, echo through […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 231 (2000) Evelyne Terryn. Assistant, Center for European Economic Law, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Advocaat. Facts and procedure The proceeding at hand finds its origin in a dispute between Colim NV (“Colim”) and Bigg’s Continent Noord NV (“Bigg’s”), two department stores trading in a Dutch- speaking province of Belgium. Bigg’s was selling several products, the labels of which contained particulars, such as the nature and composition of the product, which had not been translated into the language of the area, i.e. Dutch. Colim made a summary application to the national court for an order restraining Bigg’s […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 243 (2000) Eva Brems. Lecturer at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. Facts and Procedure Miss Meeusen, the applicant in this case, is a Belgian woman who lives in Belgium and who is a student at the Provincial Higher Technical Institute for Chemistry, an institution of higher education in Antwerpen, Belgium. Her parents are equally of Belgian nationality and resident in Belgium. Her father is the director and sole shareholder of a company established in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her mother is employed by that company for two days a week. Both parents have always earned […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 251 (2000) Miriam A. Parmentier. With both electronic commerce and electronic administration in rapid advance and the Internet promising to become a major factor of economic growth, the European Union is facing the challenge of the rise of the paperless society. Electronic signature technology is expected to have considerable impact on the further evolution of online business and electronic commerce. E-commerce will only realize its full potential if a modem legal infrastructure supports the use of electronic signatures. This raises the issue whether so-called electronic signatures on electronically created documents will be legally recognized to […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 259 (2000) reviewed by Petros C. Mavroidis. Professor of Law, University of Neuchâtel and Institut d’Études Européennes, Université Libre de Bruxelles. What do Adolf Menzel and regulation of market failures have in common? And how much of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) Wood Pulp judgements in the eighties can you trace back to the Saxon Wood Pulp experience dating from the prewar era? Is it true that the Ordoliberals from the “Freiburg School” provide the major impetus for a definitively new approach in antitrust issues in Europe? How true is the assertion that the […]

6 Colum. J. Eur. L. 264 (2000) reviewed by Lenny A. Budyonny. This book attempts to answer two important and controversial questions in jurisprudence. The first question is concerned with conditions that make us responsible for the harm we cause. The second is why we should be held responsible at all. The answers to these questions appear at various points in a compilation of six previously published essays and one introductory essay. Five of these pieces were written between 1988 and 1998, one essay was published as early as 1964, and the Introduction was most likely written in 1999. While […]