Commercial law in the context of "Civil law (common law)"

In commercial law, a principal is a person, legal or natural, who authorizes an agent to act to create one or more legal relationships with a third party. This branch of law is called agency and relies on the common law proposition qui facit per alium, facit per se (from Latin: "he who acts through another, acts personally").

It is a parallel concept to vicarious liability (in which one person is held liable for the acts or omissions of another) in criminal law or torts.

The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, who is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the principal) to create legal relations with a third party. It may be referred to as the equal relationship between a principal and an agent whereby the principal, expressly or implicitly, authorizes the agent to work under their control and on their behalf. The agent is, thus, required to negotiate on behalf of the principal or bring them and third parties into contractual relationship. This branch of law separates and regulates the relationships between:

• agents and principals (internal relationship), known as the principal-agent relationship;
• agents and the third parties with whom they deal on their principals' behalf (external relationship); and
• principals and the third parties when the agents deal.

Corporate law (also known as company law or enterprise law) is the body of law governing the rights, relations, and conduct of persons, companies, organizations, and businesses. The term refers to the legal practice of law relating to corporations, or to the theory of corporations. Corporate law often describes the law relating to matters which derive directly from the life-cycle of a corporation. It thus encompasses the formation, funding, governance, and death of a corporation.

While the minute nature of corporate governance as personified by share ownership, capital market, and business culture rules differ, similar legal characteristics and legal problems exist across many jurisdictions. Corporate law regulates how corporations, investors, shareholders, directors, employees, creditors, and other stakeholders such as consumers, the community, and the environment interact with one another. Whereas the terms company law or business law may be colloquially used interchangeably with corporate law, the term business law in fact refers to wider concepts of commercial law, which is the law governing commercial and business-related activities. In some cases, this may include matters relating to corporate governance or financial law.

Ancient Greek laws consist of the laws and legal institutions of ancient Greece.

The existence of certain general principles of law in ancient Greece is implied by the custom of settling a difference between two Greek states, or between members of a single state, by resorting to external arbitration. The general unity of ancient Greek law shows mainly in the laws of inheritance and adoption, in laws of commerce and contract, and in the publicity uniformly given to legal agreements.

Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The neutral third party (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitration award'. An arbitration award is legally binding on both sides and enforceable in local courts, unless all parties stipulate that the arbitration process and decision are non-binding.

Arbitration is often used for the resolution of commercial disputes, particularly in the context of international commercial transactions. In certain countries, such as the United States, arbitration is also frequently employed in consumer and employment matters, where arbitration may be mandated by the terms of employment or commercial contracts and may include a waiver of the right to bring a class action claim. Mandatory consumer and employment arbitration should be distinguished from consensual arbitration, particularly commercial arbitration.

Shira Perlmutter (born 1956) is an American attorney and law professor who has served as the 14th register of copyrights of the United States Copyright Office in the Library of Congress, since 2020. Before her appointment as register in 2020, Perlmutter led copyright and global law policy at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In 1995, she was appointed to be the first associate register for policy and international affairs at the Copyright Office and was the copyright consultant for the Clinton administration's advisory council on the National Information Infrastructure from 1994–5.

In the private sector, Perlmutter was the executive vice president of policy and international affairs at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a music industry association representing recording studios. Prior to that, she was associate general counsel and vice president for intellectual property at Time Warner. Prior to her notable roles, she practiced law at the Paul, Weiss law firm in New York where she practiced commercial litigation.

In domestic and international commercial law, a beneficial owner is a natural person or persons who ultimately owns or controls an interest in a legal entity or arrangement, such as a company, a trust, or a foundation. Legal owners (i.e. the owners on the record), commonly described as the "registered owners", may hold those interests as beneficial owners or for the benefit of someone else, in which case they may be described as a "nominee".

Beneficial owners hold specific property rights ("use and title") in equity belong to a person even though legal title of the property belongs to another person. Beneficial owner is subject to a state's statutory laws regulating interest or title transfer. This situation commonly occurs when the person who holds the legal title to a property or asset is considered to have inherent responsibilities similar to those of a trustee towards the individual who benefits from or has an interest in the property. A common example of a beneficial owner is the real or true owner of funds held by a nominee bank.