11 October 2019

What is Corporate Law?

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Corporate legal matters relate to the generals and specifics regarding to companies and businesses, such as mergers, public listing and delisting, acquisitions, and the rights of shareholders. In the eyes of the law, the company is considered and treated as a single entity, and this area of law deals more with corporations than with those individuals that make up the workforce of the company.

Company Law Explained

Corporate law is the area of law related to a professional company and the people involved in running and financing them. The company has a unique place in the law because, although they may consist of hundreds or thousands of workers, they are considered one entity with separate legal personality distinct from those of shareholders, directors, owners, or funders. In legal terms, a company is considered an artificial person, but a person nevertheless, and in the important business corporation it is able to claim many of the rights that individuals have. For Solicitors Huddersfield, visit https://bridgelawsolicitors.co.uk/services-for-individuals/family-law/holmfirth-huddersfield-family/

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Who uses Corporate Law?

While law firms may seem, on the basis of the name, being specific to corporations, many corporate solicitors represent small businesses and enterprises as well as large. Therefore, the corporate law is for businesses of all sizes, including new enterprises, companies, sole traders and partnerships.

Corporations, companies and Businesses

There are several types of business entities, differentiated to a great extent by which the entity’s financing comes from, where the profits go, and who is responsible for its debts.

Sole traders or partnerships financed and run by one or several people, who split the profits between them, are personally responsible for the debts incurred.

Companies and corporations are legally separate from those who own, finance, and run the organization. Profits are shared between the owners or shareholders, and when a company or corporation goes bankrupt, the shareholders and directors are not personally liable for the debt.

A private company is one owned by individuals or small groups of people, who are usually involved in running the company. Private companies raise funds through loans or investment capital, and shareholders in profits. A private company is not like a corporation, but does share some characteristics, one of which is a limitation of personal responsibility.

Public companies or companies listed on the stock exchange are partially or wholly financed by the shareholders and share the profits in proportion to the amount they have invested.

All of these different organizations can be called a “business” but only private and public companies are corporations, because only they have the legal right to be considered a separate entity with a personality separate from those of the shareholders and directors.

However, while all of these organizations differ in terms of structure and how they are perceived and treated under the law, they are all relevant to company law, and matters related to these organizations may all be handled by the company’s lawyers.

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Examples of Corporate Law Matters

Law firms cover a variety of situations and matters relating to how the company operates and interacts. Examples of matters relating to the company’s lawyers include:

Providing legal advice for the sole traders, partnerships, companies, and corporations

Documents and other things that are involved with registering or incorporating a new company

Helping the corporation into the stock market

Sole traders or partnerships help secure finance from venture capital or private equity holders

Restructuring the corporate entity to reduce or eliminate the negative impact of the company is not profitable or department

Structuring and acting on mergers and acquisitions, including buying and selling companies and assets of the company, and both public and private transactions.