A New EU Business Combination Form to Facilitate Cross-Border M&A: The Compulsory Share Exchange

Facilitating cross-border mergers and acquisitions has long been one of the objectives of European company law directives and regulations. Higher transaction costs result from the limited availability of the squeeze-out right. Instead of proposing to extend such right, which would be politically contentious, the solution proposed here is for a directive to require Member States to let companies execute acquisition transactions via a 'compulsory share exchange'.