• Ex-post evaluations/fitness checks of existing legislation

The proposal aims to introduce new provisions, and to the extent necessary complement existing ones, in order to increase the amount of company data available in business registers and/or through BRIS and improve its reliability. It also aims to enable the direct use of company data available in business registers when setting up cross-border branches and subsidiaries and in other cross-border activities and situations. Therefore, no evaluation of the existing rules took place.

• Stakeholder consultations

The Commission carried out broad consultation activities as part of this initiative to gather the views of relevant stakeholder groups. This included business registers, national authorities such as tax and labour law authorities, companies, including SMEs and business associations, legal professionals involved in company law procedures, trade unions, as well as investors, creditors, citizens and academic experts. The consultation activities included an inception impact assessment, a public consultation, a specific consultation of SMEs, targeted interviews with key stakeholders, interviews with legal professionals specialised in company law, as well as discussions with company law experts from Member State ministries and business registers in the Company Law Expert Group. The information gathered fed into the proposal.