As part of its legislative package on company law (see other article) the European Commission put a draft directive on the table on Wednesday 25 April. This aims to facilitate the use of digital tools for registering companies and managing their online information.
A key factor in the proposal includes: the fact that member states will now have to provide a procedure entirely online for setting up and managing a company. So far, only 17 member states have allowed for this possibility.
The example par excellence in this field is Estonia: its online company registration procedure only takes 18 minutes but in the other member states it can take between two and three days. According to the Commission, the new rules are expected to help cut company registration time by half.
In terms of costs, this procedure would be at least three times cheaper than the usual procedure, explained the Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, in a press conference. Total savings could be made by up to €42 million and €84 million a year for EU businesses. The proposed modernisation also goes in tandem with the introduction of safeguards regarding the use of digital tools, such as electronic identification and signatures.
One source close to the dossier stated, “This does not involve replacing the competent national authorities”. In an effort to take into account the challenges relating to cyber security, the proposal stipulates that in the event of suspected fraud, the competent authorities can demand the physical presence of the business owners in person. The new rules are also expected to reduce the administrative burden weighing down on businesses by guaranteeing that they will not have to submit the same information on different occasions in order to comply with the requirements set out at a national level. The text leaves it up to the member states to establish detailed rules on the conditions for recognising the documents and data sent them by other member states. They will also be able to define the role of notaries in the online registration procedures
The aim is to improve transparency for the public authorities and citizens. The Commission is therefore proposing to extend the data that will be freely available in the existing Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS).
The draft directive can be seen at the following link: https://bit.ly/2JlHA7O . (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)