States have traditionally dealt with foreign companies on their territory within their private international law. The arrival of European law and enactment of freedom of establishment though considerably constrained capabilities of member states, whereas companies gained the right of establishment. The aim of this thesis is characterization and specification of the relationship between the freedom of establishment, member states and companies incorporated under laws of member states. The main focus of this thesis is analysis of ten most important cases by the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning the freedom of establishment of companies, which significantly transformed mentioned relationship. Subsequently the thesis summarizes the conclusions of analyzed cases by subject of evolution of primary and secondary freedom of establishment, standing of pseudoforeign companies, conformity with incorporation theory and real seat theory and lastly ways of statutory and/or real seat transfer. The main contribution of the thesis is the very detailed case law analysis, including the newest case Vale from July 12th 2012, and also the case law classification by object.

La soutenance de thèse proposée est une soutenance sur travaux qui portent sur des questions de droit comparé des sociétés, de droit européen des sociétés et de l'arbitrage international. Les travaux portant sur le droit des sociétés s'interrogent sur les développements récents en matière de liberté d'établissement des sociétés en Europe suite à la jurisprudence rendue par la Cour européenne de justice et sur l'opération des Limited liability company de droit anglais en Allemagne et des questions de droit international privé que cela soulève. Le travail sur le droit de l'arbitrage s'interroge sur le sort des traités bilatéraux d'investissement conclus entre Etats devenus Etats membres de l'Union européenne face à la politique menée par la Commission Européenne qui vise leur annulation. / The papers submitted for the viva deal with various comparative company law, European company law and international arbitration related issues. The company law papers look at the recent developments in the freedom of establishment of companies in Europe resulting from the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and at the operation of English law limited liability companies in Germany and certain of the private international law questions that arise in that context. The paper on international arbitration discusses the future of bilateral investment treaties concluded between EU member states in light of the European Commission's hostile approach to such treaties aiming at obtaining their annulment.