Translation of "Petite société d'affaires à capital action " (French → English) :

As I mentioned earlier, however, I am happy to clarify that the small firm discount – i.e. the reduction of up to 20% for lending to smaller firms – will also apply to equity exposures to venture capital firms.

The High Level Group made several other recommendations designed to enhance directors responsibilities : a) introduction of a special investigation right, whereby shareholders holding a certain percentage of the share capital should have the right to ask a court or administrative authority to authorise a special investigation into the affairs of the company; b) development of a wrongful trading rule, whereby directors would be held personally accountable for the consequences of the company's failure, if it is foreseeable that the com ...[+++]pany cannot continue to pay its debts and they don't decide either to rescue the company and ensure payment or to put it into liquidation; c) imposition of directors' disqualification across the EU as a sanction for misleading financial and non-financial statements and other forms of misconduct by directors.

It imposes a minimum legal capital to public limited liability companies, and contains a number of detailed provisions aiming at protecting shareholders and creditors, which apply inter alia to the formation stage, to distributions to shareholders, to acquisitions of own shares, to increases in capital and to reductions in capital.

9. Considers that fundamental institutional changes should be promoted in developing countries and must include building capacity for the provision of: technical assistance, bodies which encourage social reforms (such as agrarian reform) legal security, measures to combat corruption,protection of property ownership and rights, properly functioning courts (particularly for small claims) access to justice, a banking network with easy access to opening bank and savings accounts for small account holders, the empowerment of SMEs through the easy formation of limited liability companies, limited partnerships, accounting, auditing and bookkeeping functions, the avai ...[+++]lability of incubator, micro-credit, venture, and development capital and loans, the establishment of an information technology sector, training centres and schools for basic computer operations and the establishment of technical colleges and business schools;

Furthermore, in cases where the reserves of corporations, which issue unquoted shares, differ on average, and in proportion to their nominal capital, from that of corporations, which issue unquoted shares, it would be appropriate to calculate the current price of unquoted shares in proportion to figures including reserves, such as net worth given by the corporation balance sheet, or as own funds compiled according to ESA principles ...[+++]:

Whereas it is also appropriate to enable Member States to render less stringent the obligations imposed on small companies as regards the drawing up and publication of the notes to the accounts; whereas Member States should be able to exempt such companies from the obligation to supply, in the notes to the accounts, certain data which may be deemed of less importance for small companies; whereas, with the same interests in view, Member States should have the possibility of exempting such companies from the obligation to draw up an annual report providing they include, in the notes to the accounts, the data referred to in Article 22 (2) of Directive 77/91/EEC (7) concerning the acquisition of own shares ...[+++];