After a short historical reminder, the paper states that corporate mobility remains a real political issue. To clarify matters it proposes to distinguish between a formal seat transfer, being the choice for a different legal regime, and a de facto seat change that would not affect the applicable company law,the host state not being entitled to apply its company law rules. A future directive should be based on this distinction, prescribing the formalities for the former, and stating clearly the consequences of the latter, thereby also defining the limits within which the general good can be invoked.