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Concept
Corporate personhood
Summary
Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued.
History of corporations
Ancient Indian society used legal personhood for political, social, and economic purposes. As early as 800 BC, legal personhood was granted to guild-like śreṇī that operated in the public interest. The late Roman Republic granted legal personhood to municipalities, public works companies that managed public services, and voluntary associations (collegia) such as the early Catholic Church. The diverse collegia had different rights and responsibilities that were independent of the individual members. Some collegia resembled later medieval guilds and were allowed to advance the needs of a trade as a whole, but collegia were otherwise barred from enriching their members.
In the Middle Ages, juridical persons were chartered either as corporations or as foundations in order to facilitate collective perpetual ownership of assets beyond the founders' lifespans, and to avoid their fragmentation and disintegration resulting from personal property inheritance laws. Later on, incorporation was advocated as an efficient and secure mode of economic development: advantages over existing partnership structures included the corporation's continuing existence if a member died; the ability to act without unanimity; and limited liability. The word "corporation" itself derives from the Latin corpus ("body"), and juridical personhood is often assumed in medieval writings; by the Renaissance period, European jurists routinely held that churches and universities chartered by the government could gain property, enter into contracts, sue, and be sued, independent of its members.
Official source
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