[zemvpferreira]

You'd be surprised. If I'm not mistaken in some central European countries you could be sentenced to jail time after bankruptcy up to the 2000s. My point is precisely that ltds exist but are not the same world-wide. People (like myself) raised on American business folklore can be in for very rude awakenings when things start going badly.

[vletal]

We'll, the claim seemed overly broad. I wanted to point out that these harsh liabilities on the side of company directors are country specific and usually a company can go bankrupt as long as it's not the fault of the director due to them mishandling the company resources without pulling the director down with it.

[zemvpferreira]

Let's put it this way: If anyone is thinking of starting a business, they should spend a couple of hours researching and getting guidance from experts about the laws in their specific country. It's very easy to act cavalierly on advice meant for another jurisdiction without realising it. I have.

Another quick example from Portugal: Did you know businesses or business-like entities (we have those for smaller entrepreneurs) are required to keep a 10-year archive of paper receipts, regardless of having already filed digital copies with the government or of any other common-sense exception? Most people here don't. But they can get serious fines for not being able to produce almost decade-old records they had no clue were mandatory.

The points are: a) that there is no such thing as "europe" to begin with in a regulatory sense; b) but there are structural reasons why entrepreneurs in the area behave like they do, it's not an accident; c) only the paranoid survive, so do your research because there will be a test later and you don't get a do-over.