Judgment_paragraph 43 · Test Claimants in Class IV of the ACT Group Litigation v Commissioners of Inland Revenue (C-374/04)

43In the case of companies, it should be borne in mind that their registered office for the purposes of Article 48 EC serves, in the way same as nationality in the case of individuals, as the connecting factor with the legal system of a Member State. Acceptance of the proposition that the Member State in which a company seeks to establish itself may freely apply different treatment merely by reason of its registered office being situated in another Member State would deprive Article 43 EC of all meaning (see, to that effect, Case 270/83 Commission v France [1986] ECR 273, paragraph 18; Case C-330/91 Commerzbank [1993] ECR I-4017, paragraph 13; Metallgesellschaft and Others, paragraph 42; and Marks & Spencer, paragraph 37). Freedom of establishment thus aims to guarantee the benefit of national treatment in the host Member State, by prohibiting any discrimination based on the place in which companies have their seat (see, to that effect, Commission v France, paragraph 14, and Saint-Gobain ZN, paragraph 35).