Legal issues in a fictional French Company

Thèmes abordés

Resolution of legal issues, three situations Company, Euphoria, ChinaCo, Annette, GPS system

Résumé du document

You are a vice-president of a 75-person company ("Company") in the fictional French speaking country of Euphoria, whose capital is Anytown, whose legal system closely resembles that of France's, and who is a party to the CISG. Company designs and sells a newly-invented mobile phone, the CoolPhone, that can be worn on the user's wrist by means of an ordinary watch strap (and that uses a wireless earpiece). One of your managers, Eunice, having learned that you studied International Business Law, asks you to help her handle the following three situations

Extraits

[...] So she can be fired for that. - In the case of lack of this policy, we can not say that Annette did not respect anything. She totally had the right to sign this contract. But on the contrary to the first case, because she signed in the name of the company, Company is still liable for the payment of the stock. It can be considered has a fault from Annette not having talked to her superior about this important order, but what could be the reason why Company would want to fire her anyway, is that what she did has very important consequences for the company. [...]

[...] However, a corporation is complex to set and expensive. There are more regulations and we have the problem of double taxation. In fact, the company is taxed at the business level on its profit and then, once the owners are paid, they are also taxed on their incomes they get from the company. So, at the end, this kind of business is more taxed than the first one we studied. Our main goal is to pay as less taxes as possible, so the best solution in that case, seems to be the partnership. [...]

[...] According to that article 3.1 of the Rome Convention: contract shall be governed by the law chosen by the parties. The choice must be expressed or demonstrated with reasonable certainty by the terms of the contract or the circumstances of the case. By their choice the parties can select the law applicable to the whole or a part only of the contract”[3], so we are free to choose which law will be applicable and which forum might judge the litigation. [...]

[...] We could also ask the lawyer to respect a kind of delay, since we pay him per hour, we do not want him to work during a too long time. Or we can negotiate with him an estimation of the work and then if he needs extra time, it will be free of charge. As well as we may include a clause saying that he can not take any decision without consulting us, especially important decisions, we can, if we think it is necessary, ask for some reports before the end of the month. [...]

[...] During the interviews, Brenda casually mentions that her “partner” Annette was the one who suggested that she work with Company. Eunice wants Brenda to start working for Company, and she wants to fire Annette, but she is concerned that Annette will immediately go work for a competitor and help it steal Company's customers. Situation 3 Company is interested in forming an entity that will sell its phones in the United States and wants to minimize the tax it will pay on the new entity's profits. [...]