Business commercial or Mercantile law
Business law, also called commercial law or mercantile law, is a set of rules established by convention, agreement, or national or international law that govern the relationship between people in commercial matters.
Business law falls into two distinctive areas:
(1) the regulation of commercial entities by the laws of company, partnership, agency, and bankruptcy.
(2) the regulation of commercial transactions by the laws of contract and related fields.
In civil law countries, company law consists of statute law; in common law countries, it consists partly of customary common law and equity, and partly of statute law. All corporate law is based on two fundamental legal concepts: the concept of legal personality and the theory of limited liability. Almost all legal regulations are designed to protect creditors or investors.
There are various forms of legal business entities, ranging from a sole proprietor who is the only one who bears the risk and responsibility for doing business and making profits, but as such does not form any legal association and is therefore not subject to special legal regulations, up to a registered company with limited liability and multinational companies. In a partnership, the members “associate”, collectively forming a partnership in which they all share in the management and share in the profits, incur liability for the company’s debts, and sue in solidarity in connection with the company’s contracts or illegal activities. All partners are agents of each other and, as such, have a fiduciary relationship with each other.
An agent is a person hired to establish contractual relationships with third parties. There are several forms of agency activity regulated by law: universal, when an agent is appointed to manage all the affairs of his principal; general, when the agent has the right to represent his principal in all cases of a certain kind; and special when an agent is appointed for a specific purpose and endowed with limited powers. The appointment may be express or implied and may be terminated by acts of the parties; death, bankruptcy, or insanity of a principal or agent; disappointment; or intermediate illegality. (See also Agency Theory, Finance.)
It is inevitable that, under certain circumstances, business entities may not be able to meet their financial obligations. With the development of laws governing business enterprises, a number of rules have been developed related to bankruptcy: when a person or business is insolvent (i.e., unable to pay debts on time), it or its creditors can apply to the court to take responsibility for bankruptcy. management of your property and its distribution among creditors. Three principles arise: to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of existing property among creditors, to release the debtor from his debts, and to investigate the reasons for his insolvency.
Commercial law affects everyday life through every contractual transaction. A contract, usually in the form of a business transaction involving some form of exchange of goods or services for a price, is a legally binding agreement between two or more people that is enforceable in a court of law. As such, they can be written or oral, and in order to be binding, there must be: an unconditional offer and acceptance, an intent to create a legal relationship, valuable consideration, and genuine consent (i.e., no fraud). Terms must be legal, specific, and enforceable.
The contractual relationship, the cornerstone of all commercial transactions, has led to the development of specific legal entities under commercial law that govern (1) the sale of goods, that is, the implicit terms, consequences of performance and breach of such contracts, and the remedies available to the parties; (2) transport of goods, including national and international rules governing insurance, bills of lading, charters and arbitration; (3) consumer credit agreements; and (4) labour relations, which define the contractual rights and obligations between employers and employees and the regulation of trade unions.
Business law, on national and international levels, is continually evolving with new areas of law developing in relation to consumer protection, competition, computers, and the Internet.
