Impact of EU Membership to regulation of Lithuanian close companies: enrichment or legal irritants?
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lithuanian close companies; Lithuanian private limited liability company; Regulation of companies; Establishment of companies by electronic means; Minimum capital requirement; Impact of EU membership.
ENLithuania’s road to the European Union (hereinafter EU) began in December 1995 when official application for EU membership was submitted. Unfortunately, under the Commission‘s opinion as of July 1997, Lithuania had been assessed as not ready to join, and an invitation to start negotiations was received only in December 1999. The negotiations were officially completed in December 2002 and on 1st of May 2004 Lithuania became an EU Member State, together with nine other countries – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. EU membership has had a huge influence on many areas of legal regulations in Lithuania. Lithuanian company law was not an exception. This impact was enhanced by the fact that statutory regulations of private companies in Lithuania do not have old traditions. The respective legal forms of private companies were introduced and regulated just in the year 1990, following Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Lithuania. This statutory regulation has been reformed several times to reflect both: developments within the domestic business environment as well as trends of the European company law. Our aim is to assess an impact of the EU membership on regulations of Lithuanian close companies. In other words, we will try to identify whether it encouraged the improvement of Lithuanian company law or maybe it was only an irritant for national legislator. [From the publication]
