The Study Group on European Cooperative Law (SGECOL) is a group of cooperative law scholars from different European countries, whose first meeting was held in Trento, at EURICSE, on 29-30 November 2011.
SGECOL aims to conduct comparative research on cooperative law in Europe, thus promoting increased awareness and understanding of cooperative law within the legal, academic and governmental communities at national, European and international level.
SGECOL intends to achieve this objective through different research projects in the area of cooperative law, beginning with the drafting of Principles of European Cooperative Law (PECOL).
SGECOL projects mainly regard organizational law, but may also be concerned with other branches of law, including tax, competition, state aid, public procurement, labor, insolvency law, as far as cooperatives are specifically regulated therein.
Members
SGECOL comprises two categories of members: full members and associate members.
Measures will be adopted so that, after a certain period of involvement in the operations of the group, associate members can achieve the status of full members. SGECOL will be a team open to all legal scholars from every European country, particularly academics, who wish to contribute to its projects and take part in its initiatives. Accordingly, the maintenance of the status of member, whether full or associate, depends on the member’s participation in SGECOL activity.
Full members set the research agenda, direct the projects of the group, deliberate on the admission and exclusion of members and other organizational issues. They will meet regularly to discuss fundamental issues, trends and developments of cooperative law in Europe. They are in charge of the drafting of PECOL.
Deolinda Aparício Meira – Adjunct Professor of Commercial Law at the School of Accounting and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto in Portugal;
Gemma Fajardo – Professor of Commercial Law, University of Valencia (ES);
Antonio Fici (coordinator) – Associate Professor of Private Law at the Law Department of the University of Molise in Italy;
Hagen Henrÿ – Adjunct Professor of Comparative Law, University of Helsinki (FI);
David Hiez – is a Professor of civil law at the University of Luxembourg;
Hans-H. Münkner – Former Professor of Business Organizations and Cooperative Law, University of Marburg (DE);
Ian Snaith – Former Senior Lecturer in Company Law, University of Leicester (UK);
Ger van der Sangen – Associate Professor of Company and Securities Law, Tilburg Law School (NL)
Associate members contribute to the activities of the group by participating in its projects and providing information on their national legal systems and cooperative laws.
Rosalia Alfonso Sanchez, University of Murcia (Spain)
Izaskun Alzola Berriozabalgoitia, University of Mondragon (Spain)
Bridget Carroll, University College Cork (Ireland)
Astrid Coates, University College Leuven (Belgium)
Emanuele Cusa, University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy)
Tore Fjørtoft, University of Oslo (Norway)
Georg Miribung, University of Innsbruck (Austria)
Elisabeth Reiner, University of Vienna (Austria)
Carlos Vargas Vasserot, University of Almeria (Spain)
Hakan Tunçağil, Marmara University (Turkey)
Yifat Solel, The Haifa University (Israel)
Meetings
Trento, Euricse, 29/30 September 2011
Luxembourg, University of Luxembourg, 29/30 May 2012
Manchester (UK), 31 October 2012
Trento (Euricse), 8-10 April 2013
Brussels (Belgium), 21-23 October 2013
Valencia (Spain), 24-27 March 2014
Trento(Euricse), 27-31 October 2014
To learn more about the PECOL project you can download the Euricse Working Paper 24|12 New Study Group on European Cooperative Law: “Principles”
The draft Principles of European cooperative law has been presented during the seminar “Cooprative law: the importance of a regulatory framework at the EU level” which was held on the 9th June 2015 in Brussels.