Editorial

Dear Reader,

We proudly present the new Issue of the Dovenschmidt Quarterly, dealing with a variety of topics, all very much centered around the primary focus of DQ.
Klaus Heine and Kateryna Grabovets, in ‘From Individuals to Organizations: The Puzzle of Organizational Liability in Tort Law’, initiate this issue’s discussions with a critical assessment of law and economics’ agency theory approaches to organizational wrongdoing. Demonstrating that organizational factors – such as organizational culture, design and complexity – play a prominent, but underemphasized role in organizational wrongdoing, the authors invite the reader to consider elements of organizational theory in their economic analysis of tort law in organizational settings. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Heine and Grabovets both challenge and enrich tort law and economics analysis.
The second contribution, by Stephan Rammeloo, examines the European Commission’s proposal for a 2015 Directive on sole member corporations (Societas Unius Personae (SUP)). In comparing this proposal to its 2014 predecessor, Rammeloo examines substantive differences as well as the Commission’s reasoning behind developing the SUP form. Moreover, the author assesses the extent to which the proposal satisfies the Commission’s originally stated goals. Unimpressed with the substance of the proposal, Rammeloo points out that numerous drafting and substantive shortcomings in the 2015 proposal leave the single member corporate form open to abuse by unscrupulous businessmen and consumers while simultaneously undermining trust in the SUP for those with more honest intentions.
In the final article, Bas Steins Bisschop formulates a new approach to the general concept of ‘integrity’ with aims to improve the limited and reactionary corporate regulation, which emerged after the onset of the Financial Crisis. Adopting the context of the Financial Crisis and the behaviour of Goldman Sachs during this period, the author ventures into the heart of classical legal theory to develop a new legal approach to re-establish ‘integrity’ as more than a precatory or generic concept; to turn it from an unenforceable normative concept into an enforceable positive legal concept. The author proposes that reinventing the concept of integrity in this manner will promote good governance through enforceable legal strategies.
We are convinced that studying the various contributions will contribute to the European and global discussion on corporate governance and its societal influence.

The Editorial Board