National Council passes New Bills for Startups and Entrepreneurs
The National Council passed two new entrepreneurial bills during a public session on 15 June. Bill 256 aims to create a new form of company, called Single-Person Limited Liability Company (SURL) and Bill 257 aims to create another new form of company, called Société d’Innovation Monégasque par Actions (SIMA).
“Entrepreneurship is a key driver of development,” explains Bill 256. The bill creates a new form of company made up of a single partner whose liability is limited to the amount of their contributions.
Supporting individual entrepreneurs
Our increasingly digital world values and encourages individual creators who begin commercial projects alone “in their garages”. Laws in the Principality once constrained individual entrepreneurs, with limited access to credit and an absence of protection of personal assets when their projects failed.
“Our law does not allow economic project leaders to create a company with a single shareholder. It is therefore time to offer our individual entrepreneurs, who want to start without a partner, a modern solution, flexible and adapted to their needs,” states Bill 256.
New kind of company to facilitate innovation
With the creation of Monacotech in 2017, the Principality took up the challenge of transforming the Monegasque economy through innovation. Bill 257 is in line with programs like Extended Monaco, an incubator aimed to facilitate start-ups in the Principality.
A certain number of brakes had to be lifted in the Monegasque law, leading to a scheme called “Pass Startup Programme” (Ministerial Order no. 2Ol7 -727 of 4 October 2017). This device offers an administrative existence to start-ups within MonacoTech. However, once the startups’ incubation time has elapsed, those who wish to remain in the Principality may be forced to leave in order or create holding companies outside Monegasque borders to benefit from the support of international investors.
“It is proposed to create a specific regime of Sociétés d’Innovation Monégasques par Actions (SIMA) which answers not only to the needs of startup creators, but also to those of investors and who have the opportunity to consider digitization, automation and standardization not only in creation but also in management of this,” states Bill 257.
Both new laws aim to facilitate entrepreneurship in the Principality, attract foreign investors and were passed unanimously. The Prince’s government now has a period of six months to decide whether or not to transform this bill into a law.
