I have ran across a road block in my research for my novel. It concerns ownership of commercial companies.
I can assume that there were jointly owned businesses, where several people pooled their money for an investment, but they probably did not have their own legal entities like today’s corporations do.
How were these held, what was an owner’s liability and where do I look for more information on this?
Thanks again for your brain-pool. You guys are awesome.
Hi Tom,
That question is totally outside of my scope of knowledge, but as far as I know, the Dutch East India company was the world's first legal entity covering several investors/shareholders.
Quote:Hi Tom,
That question is totally outside of my scope of knowledge, but as far as I know, the Dutch East India company was the world's first legal entity covering several investors/shareholders.
I think the actual real first incarnation of what can be called a
modern 'legal entity' (corporation), was first created for the benefit of American Indians, but the whole legal concept was seized upon by lawyers for far different purposes.
For a good rundown of, especially the modern corporation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
An excellent and critical documentary on them:
The Corporation
I was similarily scratching my head about corporations in Rome, but my wife remembers reading something in a textbook about Roman Law. We can't recall the title, but we can assure you that a book on it exists. There was a strange paarallel between the language defining a joint-business and the language defining a criminal conspiracy.
I know this doesn't really help, but I think it had an orange cover...
hope this helps....
Not much time now, but there was something very vaguely simolar to the modern joint company. A good starting point wpould be 'Publicans and Sinners' (by Ernst Badian IIRC) that studies the activities of the 'publicani'.
Roman Law, however, does not permit avoidance of private liability.
Ave Civitas,
You guys are great. Thanks a lot. But you are costing me money. Of course I bought two books on Roman Law and 'Publicans and Sinners' .
Thanks again. Appreciate all your help.
Me.
That's only normal Lothia. Didn't you know that RAT was actually founded to make publishers rich. Worked for me (getting them rich, that is).