European Union – Companies. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that European Union law should be interpreted as meaning that: – the law applicable following a cross-border merger by acquisition to the interpretation of a loan contract taken out by the acquired company, such as the contracts at issue in the main proceedings, to the performance of the obligations under the contract and to how those obligations were extinguished was the law which was applicable to the contract before the merger; – the provisions governing the protection of the creditors of the acquired company, in a case such as that at issue in the main proceedings, were those of national law which were applicable to that company.