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Commercial law or business law is the body of law which governs business and commerce and is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of private law and public law. Commercial law regulates corporate contracts, hiring practices, and the manufacture and sales of consumer goods. Business or commercial law regulates the many transactions in any of the various operations of a trade or industry and creates a norm of fairness and cooperation within a commercial deal usually having a financial gain as the objective.
Many countries have adopted civil codes which contain comprehensive statements of their commercial law. In the United States, commercial law is the province of both the Congress under its power to regulate interstate commerce, and the states under their police power. Efforts have been made to create a unified body of commercial law in the US: the most successful of these attempts has resulted in the general adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code.
UCC
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC or the Code) is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states states within the United States of America. This objective is deemed important because of the prevalence today of commercial transactions that extend beyond one state (for example, where the goods are manufactured in state A, warehoused in state B, sold from state C and delivered in state D). The UCC deals primarily with transactions involving personal property (moveable property), not real property (immovable property).
The UCC is the longest and most elaborate of the uniform acts. It has been a long-term, joint project of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Law Institute (ALI). Judge Herbert F. Goodrich was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the original 1952 edition [1], and the Code itself was drafted by some of the top legal scholars in the United States, including such luminaries as Karl N. Llewellyn, Soia Mentschikoff, and Grant Gilmore. The Code, as the product of private organizations, is not itself the law, but only recommendation of the laws that should be adopted in the states. Once enacted in a state by the state's legislature, it becomes true law and is codified into the state’s code of statutes. When the Code is adopted by a state, it may be adopted verbatim as written by ALI/NCCUSL, or may be adopted with specific changes deemed necessary by the state legislature. Unless such changes are minor, they can affect the purpose of the Code in promoting uniformity of law among the various states.
Various regulatory schemes control how commerce is conducted, privacy laws, safety laws (i.e. OSHA in the United States) food and drug laws are some examples.
Topics in business law
Contracts
Contract law governs the formation and elements of a contract including the agreement process or offer and acceptance, valuable consideration, and the defenses to a contract formation. There are rights and obligations of the non-parties, and the performance of the contract or the maturing and/or breach of contractual duties.
Corporate law
Corporate law considers the characteristics of a corporation and the sources of corporate power. There are formalities of incorporation and stock sales along with creating the corporate management with contracts, directors, officers and shareholders. Secondary stock sales involve restrictions on insider trading, and corporate distributions involving dividends, redemptions, and repurchases. Corporations may have mergers and acquisitions, and they may be dissolved and liquidated.
Real property law
Real property law involves estates in land and the classification and validity of all interests in the property. There are landlord and tenant isues on the types of tenancies, and the obligations owed both landlord and tenant. Easements, profits, covenants and servitudes are types of interests in the land and there is a determination as to how they were created with what reasonable use and whether all requirements have been met for the burden or benefit to run. There are conveyance issues within a contract of sale with deed, recording and covenants for title factors. Additionally, there are the issues of adverse possession and prescriptive easements to be considered.
Other topics in business law
The topics of Intellectual property, Tax law, Negotiable instruments, and Letter of credit are handled under separate articles as the above topics.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Emerson, Robert W., Business law, Hauppauge, NY: Barron's, 2004. ISBN 0-764-11984-2
- Mann, Richrd A.; Roberts, Barry S.; Smith, Len Young, Smiht & Roberson's business law, Australia; Cinn. OH: West Legal Studies in Business, 2000. ISBN 0-585-37472-4
- Steingold, Fred; Bray, Ilona M., Legal guide for starting and running a small business, Berkeley, CA: Nola, 2001. ISBN 0-585-40992-7
External links
- Commercial Law — Articles & Definitions Retrieved September 2, 2007.
- topical listing of US commercial law from Cornell's Legal Information Institute Retrieved September 2, 2007.
- a similar site posted by Georgetown Law Center Retrieved September 2, 2007.
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