Alessio Bartolacelli

Almost Capital-less Companies in Europe: Trends, Variations, Competition

In this article, I will analyze the current trend in many European Countries of lowering the minimum legal capital required to create a private company, as well as the most relevant experiences in the field of the simplified constitution process of private companies. In the final remarks, some key points of these issues are going to be compared, also adding references to the recently introduced Italian almost capital-less companies, by concluding, among other things, that a legal capital’s decrease does not necessarily imply a race to the bottom in opposition to the interests of the company’s creditors.

The New Italian Almost Capital-less Private Companies: A Brand New Tile in the Mosaic

This paper aims at giving basic information about the recent amendments in Italian private company law in particular, the “new” simplified s.r.l. and the ordinary s.r.l. with a capital under the minimum threshold are considered, along with innovative startups and SMEs. In spite of lowering the starting legal capital required for a company’s constitution, the running legal capital set at 10,000 Euro seems to be still in force, and the overall situation does not seem to imply a race to the bottom against creditors’ stakes, as will be underlined in the conclusion.