Circonlex Posts

Every business has personnel decisions to make, whether you need to phase someone out, cut a bit of weight or put new people in to manage an acquisition.  Over the course of the years one fact remains; if you need to reorganize your European activities the most prudent line of action is to plan for any change to take a few months and that it will likely cost you more than you had anticipated. The labor law aspects of an acquisition or day-to-day management of a European subsidiary give every US counsel nightmares.

Safe From Corporate Veil Piercing in Limited Liability Companies in France? Think again

Director and shareholder liability is largely limited by the the corporate form whether an LLC, and S-Corp or a C-Corp.

These limited liability structures are what insulate the people running and investing in them from having creditors seek out their personal assets.  Even if the entity goes bankrupt, directors and shareholders can generally rest easy that their personal lives will remain intact.  This protection is only provided, however, if the company is run according to the rules of good corporate governance and accounting.  If the rules are not respected to a degree where the corporate personality and those of the individuals running the company become blurred, the personal liability protection may be removed through "piercing the corporate veil".

Landlord/Tenant law in France: Renter and or occupant bias is making it at times very difficult for landlords to take full advantage of their rights.  On the other hand, Paris is notorious for having thousands of vacant properties while there are equal numbers, if not more, of those who have no place to live at all.

For anyone familiar with EU competition law, they know about the dawn raids that some companies have suffered at the hands of the EU Commission.  These raids, much like police breaking into a house unannounced in search of a criminal, are fully authorized and legal under Article 20 of the Council Regulation No. 1/2003.

We see from time to time the question: "what is the French translation for in-house counsel, as it is known in common law jurisdictions?"  The simple translation for this is juriste or juriste en entreprise.

Circonlex is proud to announce the opening of its United States based operations with an office near Houston Texas. Circonlex LLC was officially formed on May 5th, 2010.