In his political guidelines for the new EU Commission, President Juncker pledged to create a European Capital Markets Union (CMU) to increase non-bank financing of the European economy and further integrate capital markets. In this context, the EU Commission launched a public consultation in February 2015.
Frank Bold submitted a response to the consultation and prepared an accompanying paper outlining the recommendations sent to the EU Commission on the guiding principles of a proper functioning CMU.
Frank Bold has stated that financing through capital markets is not appropriate for most private companies, especially SMEs, which will continue to be primarily financed through relationship-based bank lending. Private companies are often rightly concerned about listing due to the risk of pressure from capital markets. Therefore, Frank Bold recommends clarifications to the role of investors in corporate governance and the protection of corporate purpose.
More broadly, future policy should integrate sustainability and corporate responsibility into its central priorities. We highlight necessary changes to insolvency, company and tax laws for the development of a strong, stable and equitable pan-European financial market.
Our response includes the following recommendations:
The next phase will be this summer when the EU's financial services commissioner, Jonathan Hill, will adopt an Action Plan establishing the roadmap to put in place the building blocks for CMU by 2019.
If you are interested to know more about Frank Bold's recommendations to promote sustainable financing of European companies you can read the accompanying paper to the CMU public consultation Written by Paige Morrow, head of Frank Bold Brussels Operations and responsible for the Purpose of the Corporation Project.
Czech Supreme Administrative Court ruled yesterday in favour of air quality and protection of human health. In the case local citizens and an NGO from Ostrava agglomeration, the most polluted region in the Czech Republic, succeeded with their claim for better air quality.
Yesterday, on 5 November 2018, a lawsuit against the Ministry of the Environment (MoE) on liability for health damages and death of her husband from lung cancer was filed with the District Court in Prague 10. The plaintiff seeks damages for lung cancer, which she has managed to cure, but her husband has succumbed to the illness in October. The cause of the disease is seen in the long-term excessive concentration of air pollutants at their place of residence in Ostrava-Radvanice and in the fact that the MoE failed to provide effective measures to decrease the pollution to legal limit values.
The Brussels office of the public interest law firm Frank Bold is currently recruiting a Research Intern to start full-time in January 2017 for a period of four to six months.
