1. See Case C-210/06 of 16 December 2008. Cartesio follows a series of decisions that, after the Daily Mail decision of 1989 (Case 81/87 The Queen v. H.M. Treasury and Commissioners of Inland Revenue ex parte Daily Mail and General Trust plc [1989] ECR 5483), opened the door to regulatory competition in company law in the EU: Centros (Case C-212/97 Centros Ltd v. Erhvervs- og Selskabssyrelsen [1999] ECR 1-1459), Überseering (Case C-208/00 Überseering BV v. Nordic Construction Company Baumanagement GmBH [2002] ECR I-9919), Inspire Art (Case C-167/01 Kamer van Koophandel en Fabrieken voor Amsterdam v. Inspire Art Ltd [2003] ECR 1-10155) and SEVIC (Case C-411/03 SEVIC Systems AG [2005] ECR I-10805).
2. On Cartesio, see G.J. Vossestein, ‘Cross-Border Transfer of Seat and Conversion of Companies under the EC Treaty Provisions on Freedom of Establishment. Some Considerations on the Court of Justice’s Cartesio Judgment’, 6 European Company Law (2009) p. 115; K. Korom and P. Metzinger, ‘Freedom of Establishment for Companies: the European Court of Justice Confirms and Refines Its Daily Mail Decision Case C-210/06’, 6 European Company and Financial Law Review (2009) p. 125; B. Knof and S. Mock, ‘Anmerkung’, 30 Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht (2009) p. 30; P. Kindler, ‘Ende der Diskussion über die so genannte Wegzugfreiheit’, 12 Neue Zeitschrift für Gesellschaftsrecht (2009) p. 130; S. Leible and J. Hoffmann, ‘Cartesio — fortgeltende Sitztheorie, grenzüberschreitender Formwechsel und Verbot materiellrechtlichen Wegzugbeschränkungen’, 64 Betriebs-Berater (2009) p. 58; C. Teichmann, ‘Cartesio: Die Freiheit zum Formwechselnden Wegzug’, 30 Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht (2009) p. 393; D. Zimmer, ‘Das Cartesio-Urteil des EuGH: Rück- oder Fortschritt für das Internationale Gesellschaftsrecht?’, 62 Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (2009) p. 545.
3. The decision of the European Court of Justice can be regarded as a surprise. Indeed, scholars had criticised the requirement to keep the administrative office in the Member State of incorporation, basically arguing that the Treaty protects freedom of establishment in terms of entry (Centros,Überseering and Inspire Art) but also exit. See, e. g., W.-H. Roth, ‘“Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust…”: Zur Auswanderungsfreiheit für Gesellschaften in Europa’, in S. Lorenz, A. Trunk, H. Eidenmüller, C. Wendehorst and J. Adolf, eds., Festschrift für Andreas Helderlich zum 70. Geburtstag (München C.H. Beck 2005) p. 973; W.G. Ringe, ‘No Freedom of Emigration for Companies?’, 16 European Business Law Review (2005) p. 621. F.M. Mucciarelli, ‘Company “Emigration” and EC Freedom of Establishment: Daily Mail Revisited’, 9 European Business Organization Law Review (2008) p. 267. The conclusions of Advocate General Maduro stressed the incompatibility of the requirement with freedom of establishment and were mainly positively commented upon by scholars. See W.-G. Ringe, ‘Anmerkung’, 29 Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht (2008) p. 1072; M. Szyło, ‘Emigration of Companies under the EC Treaty: Some Thoughts on the Opinion of the Advocate General in the Cartesio Case’, 16 European Review of Private Law (2008) p. 973. Contra, see R. Wilhelmi, ‘Der Wegzug von Gesellschaften im Lichte der Rechtsprechung des EuGH zur Niederlassungsfreiheit’, 61 Der Betrieb (2007) p. 1811.
4. A useful introduction to the literature on regulatory competition is provided by K. Kocaoglu, A Comparative Bibliography: Regulatory Competition on Corporate Law, Georgetown Law Working Paper (2008), available at: http://www.ssrn.com.
5. See M. Jensen and W. Meckling, ‘Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behaviour, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure’, 3 Journal of Financial Economics (1976) p. 305; H. Hansmann, The Ownership of Enterprise (Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press 1996). This kind of literature has developed on the basis of the seminal article by R. Coase, ‘The Nature of the Firm’, 4 Economica (1937) p. 386; for the development in US corporate law scholarship, see J.S. Johnston, ‘The Influence of the Nature of the Firm on the Theory of Corporate Law’, 18 Journal of Corporation Law (1993) p. 213.