Chinese investors should take employee unions or works councils into consideration when investing in EU companies, an expert has suggested.
DLA Piper recently advised China Eastern Airlines (CEA) on its strategic investment in Euronext Paris-listed Air France-KLM (AFK). Through this transaction, CEA and SkyTeam alliance member Delta Air Lines (Delta) had each acquired a 10% stake in AFK’s share capital.
“There is a unique feature of EU companies, and in particular French companies, which is [that] employee unions or work councils generally have material influence over a proposed transaction,” Stewart Wang, a partner at DLA Piper in Shanghai, told China Business Law Journal.
