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Virtual Enterprise Workshop
Legal Issues for Virtual Enterprises
 Milan, November 27th 2000 - ESoCE Italia annual conference

The Scenario
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The effectiveness and efficiency of industry is of crucial importance for European competitiveness. As evidenced in major European Programmes, Concurrent Engineering (CE) is increasingly playing the role of reference approach to the achievement of enhanced performances in cost/time reduction and quality improvement.
 
The advancement of Information and Communication Technology has enacted the CE based concept of Concurrent (Virtual) Enterprise, where a net of geographically dispersed company sites or small/medium enterprises (SME) collaborating on specific business opportunities and programs, using the universal time frame.

This trend is now absorbing the relationship large industry - subcontractors. Involving the sub-contractors in the development process from the very beginning, as if they were just a part of a Virtual Enterprise developing its product, produces extremely significant benefits.

Several barriers are still present, which are mainly related to organizational and cultural elements: global market calls for extended co-operation that must be enabled by a structured framework of rules by the actual generalized adoption of innovative industrial methods. In particular, a number of questions are still to be given a consolidated answer, as :

  • What should the legal Identity of a Virtual Enterprise be?
  • What kind of contractual framework would be most appropriate given the unique characteristics of the VE?
  • How will IPR and confidentiality between VE participants be adequately guaranteed so as to encourage VE participation?
  • What is the extent and duration of liability between each VE participant with respect to his other members within the VE and to the external customers / suppliers?
  • Given that the VE is a global concept, what national legal framework and jurisdiction would apply in the case of each VE?
  • What steps should be taken, and provision made, to secure in law, the rights of the consumer for products and services offered by the VE?
  • What regulatory framework should apply with respect to taxation and accounting conventions?
  • What implications does the VE and any related legal and regulatory framework have on employment law?
  • What implications does the VE and any related legal and regulatory framework have on existing legislation regarding health and safety?
  • What implications does the VE paradigm have for European competition regulation?
  • How could software development impact on the legal requirements, i.e. improve drafting and exchange of legal documents, (e.g. contracts, agreements, IPR conventions)?
  • Which legal force should be given to evidence from e-documents and how could responsibility and liability be electronically tracked?
  • Which new legal proceedings should be developed, and which contract clauses would be best applicable to a digital co-operation environment ?
  
 
 
 
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