This article is devoted to the issue of the sources of financing of the emerging employee-owned companies. It indicates the possibilities of financing such companies from the equity held by employees, loans and borrowings as well as from funds provided by an outside investor. The analysis of the issue of employee financial participation requires an interdisciplinary approach encompassing not only economic and legal aspects, but also social and political conditions deeply embedded in a historical context. The author devotes a significant part of the work to the imperfect, but noteworthy, citizen-initiated project of the Act on employee-owned companies written by labor unions. This regulation would be a panacea for the lack of sufficient amount of capital needed to create an employee-owned company through the process of employee privatization supported from the public funds. The author considers such a solution in the context of admissibility of state interference with the rules governing free market.
Private companies limited by shares or by guarantee, managed by one person who is their sole shareholder, are seen as an alternative to business activities conducted on the basis of the Act on Freedom of Business Activity, thereby releasing the owner from personal liability for obligations of such entity. The specificity of these untypical companies is the creation of personal identity between the shareholder and the chairman of the board, leading to the necessity to perform legal actions “with oneself.” It has particular implications in the field of establishing an employment relationship with the chairman of the board in his own company. Imprecise provisions of the acts related to company law and labour law cause a lot of controversy in this matter. The author brings up the subject of appointing the sole shareholder, constituting the one-person board of directors, and the way of employing him in the company. He indicates a lack of possibilities to establish the employment relationship caused by the lack of essential elements of subordination, and suggests that the member of the board should be employed on the basis of a civil law agreement (management contract).