A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and, usually, an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be made to exist in law and then a company is itself considered a “legal person”. The name company arose because, at least originally, it represented or was owned by more than one real or legal person.
In the United States, a company is a corporation—or, less commonly, an association, partnership, or union—to carry out an enterprise.[1] Generally, a company may be a “corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, trust, fund, or organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, and (in an official capacity) any receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, or similar official, or liquidating agent, for any of the foregoing.”[1]
In English law and in the Commonwealth realms a company is a body corporate or corporation company registered under the Companies Acts or similar legislation.[2] It does not include a partnership or any other unincorporated group of persons, although such an entity may be loosely described as a company.
Meaning and definition
A company can be defined as an “artificial person“, invisible, intangible, created by Law, with a discrete legal entity, perpetual succession and a common seal. It is not affected by the death, insanity or insolvency of an individual member.
The English word has its origins in the Old French military term compaignie (first recorded in 1150), meaning a “body of soldiers”,[3] originally taken from the Late Latin word companio “companion, one who eats bread with you”, first attested in the Lex Salica as a calque of the Germanic expression *gahlaibo (literally, “with bread”), related to Old High German galeipo “companion” and Gothic gahlaiba “messmate”. By 1303, the word referred to trade guilds. Usage of company to mean “business association” was first recorded in 1553 and the abbreviation “co.” dates from 1769.
History
According to one source, “it may be formed by Act of Parliament, by Royal Charter, or by registration under company law (referred to as a limited liability or joint-stock company).”[4] In the United Kingdom, the main regulating laws are the Companies Act 1985 and the Companies Act 2006.[4] Reportedly, “a company registered under this Act has limited liability: its owners (the shareholders) have no financial liability in the event of winding up the affairs of the company, but they might lose the money already invested in it”.[4] In the USA, companies are registered in a particular state—Delaware being especially favoured—and become Incorporated (Inc).[4]
In North America, two of the earliest companies were The London Company (also called the Charter of the Virginia Company of London)—an English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I of England on April 10, 1606 with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America—and Plymouth Company that was granted an identical charter as part of the Virginia Company. The London Company was responsible for establishing the Jamestown Settlement, the first permanent English settlement in the present United States in 1607, and in the process of sending additional supplies, inadvertently settled the Somers Isles, alias Bermuda, the oldest-remaining English colony, in 1609.
References
- ^ a b c d Black’s Law and lee Dictionary. Second Pocket Edition. Bryan A. Garner, editor. West. 2001.
- ^ Companies Act 2006, Section 1
- ^ Harper, Douglas. “company”. Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ a b c d e “Company.” Crystal Reference Encyclopedia. Crystal Reference Systems Limited. 27 Nov. 2007. Reference.com
- ^ Companies Act 2006
Further reading
- Dignam, A and Lowry, J (2006) Company Law, Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-928936-3.
- John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: a Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (New York: Modern Library, 2003)
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