International

Fabritius Tengnagel & Heine have specialised in international commercial law. We have considerable experience of the particular problems typically met by foreign companies when they operate businesses in Denmark or wish to become established in Denmark with a view to this.

There is a broad difference in the ways the same problems are solved in different countries. Even within the European Union, where in the past 60 years a significant harmonisation and conformity of laws and principles has taken place, legislation continues to vary significantly from country to country:

• England’s judicial system is e.g. based on a Common Law tradition, where case law plays a decisive role while other major EU members such as e.g. Germany and France on the other hand build upon a so-called continental legal tradition in which the laws are codified in bulky law books and where case law does not have the same decisive role as in e.g. England.

Even in countries with the same legal tradition and shared geographic borders, legislation and the way in which problems are solved continue to differ markedly from each other. In Germany matters concerning the business sector are regulated in legislation to a far higher degree than in Denmark and the same issues are often solved in different ways in Germany and Denmark:

• In Germany a sole agent is e.g. entitled to redress for loss of goodwill if the sole agent’s agreement is terminated by his/her supplier and the sole agent has contributed to improving clientele for the supplier’s products, while a Danish sole agent, whose agreement has been terminated by his/her supplier, as a rule has far better prospects of receiving financial compensation from the supplier. In Denmark the principle applies that the sole agent must continually be responsible for recognising his/her expenses for e.g. marketing and recruitment of new customers in the sales price. In other words the sole agent must personally be responsible for ensuring that he receives payment for the goodwill, which he generates.

The fact is that language barriers, different social norms, various education systems and cultural diversity generally from country to country, mean that the same problems are often solved differently from one judicial system to another.

At Fabritius Tengnagel & Heine we have lawyers with good language proficiency, who have thorough knowledge of different cultures, including particular differences within the European Union and in the USA, and who have done some of their training abroad. We can therefore offer efficient advice at a high professional level, taking into account the problems which foreign businesses run into when operating in Denmark or wish to become established with a view to carrying out operations in Denmark.