EU Internal Market & Trade

The EU & Regulatory Law Department also advises clients on other areas of European law such as the free movement of goods and capital, freedom to provide services, freedom of establishment and the free movement of workers.

The EU has strived hard to bring about a single market with a view to eliminating barriers to enable everyone in the EU - individuals, consumers and businesses - to truly benefit from the opportunities offered to them by having direct access to 27 different legal systems and 480 million people.

These freedoms are enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and form the basis of the single market framework. In practice, these freedoms grant to:

¤ Individuals: the right to live, work, study or retire in another EU state;

¤ Consumers: increased competition leading to lower prices, a wider choice of things to buy and higher levels of protection; and

¤ Businesses: easier and cheaper to do business across borders.

The principle of freedom of establishment enables an economic operator (whether a person or a company) to carry on an economic activity in a stable and continuous way in one or more Member States. The principle of the freedom to provide services enables an economic operator providing services in one Member State to offer services on a temporary basis in another Member State, without having to be established.

These provisions have direct effect which means, in practice, that Member States must modify national laws that restrict freedom of establishment, or the freedom to provide services, and are therefore incompatible with these principles. Member States may only maintain such restrictions in specific circumstances where these are justified by overriding reasons of general interest, for instance on grounds of public policy, public security or public health; and where they are proportionate.

These freedoms are however not always upheld by the Member States who are increasingly relying on the above overriding reasons for ways to maintain control over what they deem to be their national interests. Jurisprudence on the matter is also constantly evolving and is a subject of continuous development. The EU & Regulatory Department keeps abreast with these developments and offers its clients adequate protection of the legal rights enunciated in the TFEU, both locally, and before the judicial, regulatory and administrative bodies at a European level.

The Department also assists its Clients in relation to anti-dumping measures, intellectual property issues, harmonisation of laws, transport, logistics and telecommunications.