Legal Capital Rules- an Outdated Concept for Public companies?

The Legal capital regime has been regarded as a cornerstone of the European Company Law. Its set of rules regarding both private and public companies were put in place with the primary goal of protecting creditors’ interests. However, in the recent years, there has been a significant criticism of the rules on the raising of capital, minimum capital and capital maintenance which led to reforms of the legal capital rules for private companies in many European countries. This has also sparked a debate on the feasibility of legal capital rules for public companies. The purpose of this dissertation is to consider whether the legal capital rules for public companies are an outdated concept and highlight possible reforms in that area of law.