Corporate Law

Greek corporate law, like many other continental European legal frameworks, distinguishes itself primarily through the differentiation between people – and capital companies, therefore between the general partnership / limited partnership and the private limited company / public limited company.

Often the selection of the form of a company is shaped less by legal aspects than by fiscal incentives. In this respect, in this context, the fiscal side of the form in question must inevitably be taken into consideration when selecting a type of company.

In the course of the development of the modernisation of the legal systems, in particular in order to fulfil the requirements in practice, various overhauls were also made in Greece, which, in many aspects lead to an improvement in the selection and implementation options.

Therefore, not only were time-consuming bureaucratic procedures dismantled, and the formation of a company in a matter of days made possible (the so-called One Stop Shop Procedure), a new type of company was created which has proven itself as very efficient in practice. By which we refer to the private capital company, the so-called IKE, which unifies the legal and fiscal advantages in a flexible and practice-oriented type of company. In addition, obsolete disclosure procedures in the Government Gazette were replaced by quick register applications. In doing so the role of the Chamber of Commerce is also stronger and has moved more to the forefront in Greece as well.

These developments have, therefore, not only created a better foundation for the implementation of an investment from the point of view of corporate law, but, in particular, have also been able to lower the costs for the formation of a company limited by shares.

Altogether corporate law underwent additional changes in the last few years which primarily were intended to enable an adjustment of obsolete legislation to new market conditions.

At the beginning of an investment, however, the purpose of the company should naturally be investigated in order to be able to consider the specific needs of the initiative in the individual case, and the shareholders in the selection of the supporters. In addition to the above-mentioned fiscal aspects which were, in the meantime, also substantially adjusted for most types of companies as part of the fiscal reforms, the selection of the type of company must then be made on this basis and with consideration for the specifics of the individual types of companies.