The aim of this report is to analyze the legal framework concerning the withdrawal of members in cooperative societies, examining the reasons for withdrawal and the role of statutory autonomy, in order to assess criteria and methods for regulating this practice, including the implementation of withdrawal policies within the cooperative system. Read More
The International Handbook of Cooperative Law has just been published. The book represents a fundamental instrument for training and research, especially comparative, in the area of cooperative law. Read More
The main part of this paper is concerned with describing the legal models of cooperative societies from different perspectives: (a) by origin, (b) by type of cooperative, and (c) by continent. Conclusions are drawn on international guidelines for good cooperative law around a common core-the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Declaration of Cooperative Identity. Read More
This paper aims to provide a brief general overview of the present state of European Union (EU) cooperative law from the perspective of harmonization of cooperative law in Europe. It also presents the author’s point of view on the possible future of both EU cooperative law and the harmonization of European national cooperative laws. Read More
The question addressed in this paper is whether the financial structure of cooperatives constitutes a badge of identity that differentiates cooperatives from other corporate legal forms such as capital-based companies. To this end, it examines features of their financial structure that are considered typical of cooperatives in a number of documents published by international organizations. Read More
The paper aims to take an in-depth look at the "Network Contract," an innovative form of business aggregation recently introduced by the legislature, through the results of a qualitative survey conducted on a sample of about 300 companies involved in 159 network contracts. Read More
This paper presents both a new scientific network named “Study Group on European Cooperative Law” (SGECOL), and the “Principles of European Cooperative Law” (PECOL) project, which SGECOL has identified as its first research activity. Read More
This paper deals with the legal identity of cooperatives. It is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the role and function of law and of comparative legal research on the topic of cooperative identity (sec. 2). The second part focuses on cooperative identity within the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Principles and the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity at large (sec. 3). Read More
The first part of this overall final study contains a synthesis and comparative report. This section puts forward the theoretical framework and ascertains the empirical application of the SCE Regulation and it outlines the principal features of European national cooperative legislation, presenting a comparative analysis of said legislation Read More
The second part of this final study contains, ordered by country,national reports by the national experts involved in this research; each national report is written in accordance with the guidelines provided by the scientific committee to guarantee the uniformity of contributions and the presence therein of relevant information on both SCE regulation implementation and national cooperative legislation. Read More
This paper provides a comparative assessment of the legal frameworks for non-profit organisations (NPOs) in England and Japan, offering fresh insights into the differences in legislative support for NPO development in both countries. Read More
This paper presents the principal characteristics of the new Italian co-operative law and seeks to evaluate the relationship of some of its main provisions to traditional co-operative principles. Using the Italian reforms as a starting point for debate, this paper puts forth the possibility of generalising a modified approach to co-operative regulation and principles, taking into account efficiency issues, while preserving the co-operative identity. Read More