Evolution of the legislator’s views on the laws governing succession in public law

Abstract

Articles 285 § 3 and 465 § 3 relating to mergers of the former Commercial Code provided that once the acquired company had been struck off from the register of companies, the acquiring company acquired all the rights and obligations of the acquired company. These were the only provisions of the Code that constituted the statutory basis for universal succession. However, it was not clear whether this succession included only civil rights and obligations, or the public ones as well. Article 494 § 2 of the Code of Commercial Companies and Partnerships which replaced the Commercial Code expressly provides that in the event of a merger, a universal succession that follows extends on public rights and obligations as well. However, in the period when the Commercial Code was in force, two other acts were also enforced, namely the law on privatisation of state enterprises of 13 July 1990, and the law on commercialisation and privatisation of 30 August 1996. The provisions of both suggested the inclusion of a statutory basis for universal succession also for public law matters. The legislative solutions adopted in those acts constitute reference material for the analysis of the regulation of succession under the current Code of Commercial Companies and Partnerships. This article primarily presents the evolution of law as a result of the evolving legislator’s views, which resulted in moving from a state of affairs in which the public law legal succession was not provided to the current situation in which public law universal succession applies to mergers of companies as well. In the event of a transformation of
a company or a state-owned enterprise, the public rights and duties are continued.