The economic world, with companies at the forefront, offers a large scope for investigation from a legal perspective. In this book, entitled Droit de l'Entreprise (1), the authors look at both practical and theoretical aspects. 'Of course, economic law is a practical subject', explains Nicolas Thirion, who teaches third year students in the Bachelor of Law programme at the University of Liège, and who managed the publication. 'So we studied legal techniques which could be useful in the business world. However, this paper also aims to extend the study of economic law, to look at the broad outlines of the subject and reveal its underlying structure. This involves looking at the subject matter in its historical and ideological context. The economy is part of a system in which the ideas which dominate an era are to be found.'

The economic system in which we operate today is marked by liberalism. This hasn't always been the case, as Nicolas Thirion, professor of economic law points out: 'The first general signs of liberalisation in continental Europe date back to the French Revolution, which was sparked by the development of liberal and individualist ideas. When transposed to the economy, this meant that free enterprise must lead to competition between a multitude of small undertakings, and through that, contribute to the greater good of consumers. By 'undertaking', in reality we mean an individual natural person. This liberal vision of the economy was to take shape through three fundamental reforms: the abolition of feudalism, the Allarde Decree, by which guilds, i.e. large groups of manual workers and factories, were supressed and the Le Chapelier Law which forbade citizens from the same profession, both workers and managers, from creating what we now know as trade unions’

With the Industrial Revolution, which began in England at the end of the 18^th century and which extended throughout the 19^th century across continental Europe, the economy acquired a new dimension. Industrial capitalism grew in northern Europe, where it found both a labour supply and the energy resources necessary for its development. Workers' demands, initially repressed by the Criminal Code, were to be 'taken into consideration from the last third of the 19^th century, through the adoption of laws to protect the weaker party in the working relationship. From this point onwards, the 'social issue' contributed to the emergence of a new branch of law, which has not ceased to develop since: labour law.’

Alongside the birth of labour law, the first laws destined to preserve the market from the unbridled liberalism which threatened it appeared. The unrestrained competition to which companies were exposed at the time - the strongest eliminating the weakest - led to the creation of monopolies, which were the negation of the free market and liberalism. The US Congress was the first to vote in a law in 1890 (the Sherman Act) which allowed the control and potential sanctioning of companies which damaged competition. Antitrust law or competition law was born.

(1)    Nicolas Thirion, Thierry Delvaux, Audrey Fayt, Deborah Gol, David Pasteger, Mathieu Simonis, Droit de l’entreprise, Collection de la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Liège, Larcier, 2013.