The judgments of the
Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the ‘Danish cases’ (C-115/16
and C-116/16) changed significantly the economic substance requirements for EU
holding companies. The CJEU specified certain indicators to help guide the
national courts in assessing cases where an EU holding company may not be the
beneficial owner. This publication compares the implementation of the CJEU’s
crucial standpoints from the Danish cases by the national courts of particular
Member States. The conducted analysis attempt to answer the two basic questions.
Firstly, the correlation of the substantive business activity test with the
beneficial ownership (BO) concept. Secondly, the role of the dominion test in
the post-Danish cases era for assessing BO status.