The Suitability of Luxembourgish Law to B Corp

Abstract

Luxembourg is famous as an important finance capital in Europe but its legislation on social enterprises and its approach to B Corp is less well known. Its company law is traditionally copied on Belgian law, so that it is B Corp friendly in the same respect, even if its last major reform in 2016 is more autonomous and suspect of excessive attention paid to multinational enterprises. But Luxembourg has also been inspired by social and solidarity economy and created in 2016 a special legal modality for social enterprises: the societal impact company. The social impact company is an original legislation, open to diverse legal forms of companies, accredited by the Minister and, above all, the acknowledgement of two different classes of shares: impact shares and return shares. Meanwhile, Luxembourg is a good example of public support for corporate social responsibility, with a national label; the outcome is a low number of B Corp, since many companies choose to get the national label.