Board Competition brought by the Council Regulation (EC) No 2157/2001 on the Statute for a European Company (SE)

The Regulation of SE has opened the door for enterprises to choose the appropriate board structure they favor. Although, the applicable rules of SE still much depend on the national company laws of Member States, this reform has indeed had impact on the commercial societies of each Member States. Through the freedom of choosing board structures, using one-tier board as the basic corporate governance regime in the traditional two-tier board countries are no longer a dream, vice versa. Notwithstanding some Member States choose a comparatively conservative way to implement the Regulation of SE, the changes has happened and the theory of path-dependency no longer fully applies to European corporate governance. Instead, a new competition between one-tier board and two-tier board will continuingly lead to the birth of the appropriate board structure for the Europe in the long run.