Every business owner and startup founder knows the feeling and the moment when regulatory complexity stops being a background concern and becomes the deciding factor in where or whether you build your business/product.

This book tells the story about how the choice of jurisdiction (and the rules therein) can make or break a business, and also investigates the interaction between law and innovation. It is analyzed by someone who set out to understand, with scholarly precision, exactly why. The research focuses on how regulation comparatively in the EU & AU affects the startup ecosystem (including their entry, competitiveness, innovativeness, and exit), with a focus in 3 main areas: corporate governance, competition law, and Intellectual Property (Patents).

Ekemeabasi Essen has spent almost a decade at that intersection. A Nigerian-qualified lawyer whose curiosity about the European business environment led her to pursue a PhD in Business Law from Humboldt University of Berlin. She brings both the practitioner's instinct and the scholar's rigour to one of the most pressing questions facing founders and policymakers alike. Across multiple jurisdictions and industries, she has advised companies navigating the often unpredictable terrain of regulatory compliance, and it is exactly that experience which provokes the questions at the heart of this book.