United States corporate law

United States corporate law regulates the governance, finance and power of corporations in US law. Every state and territory has its own basic corporate code, while federal law creates minimum standards for trade in company shares and governance rights, found mostly in the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. The US Constitution was interpreted by the US Supreme Court to allow corporations to incorporate in the state of their choice, regardless of where their headquarters are. Over the 20th century, most major corporations incorporated under the Delaware General Corporation Law, which offered lower corporate taxes, fewer shareholder rights against directors, and developed a specialized court and legal profession. Nevada has done the same. Twenty-four states follow the Model Business Corporation Act, while New York and California are important due to their size.

At the Declaration of Independence, corporations had been unlawful without explicit authorization in a Royal Charter or an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since the world's first (the South Sea Bubble of 1720) corporations were perceived as dangerous. This was because, as the economist Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (1776), directors managed "other people's money" and this conflict of interest meant directors were prone to "negligence and profusion". Corporations were only thought to be legitimate in specific industries (such as insurance or banking) that could not be managed efficiently through partnerships. After the US Constitution was ratified in 1788, corporations were still distrusted, and were tied into debate about interstate exercise of sovereign power. The First Bank of the United States was chartered in 1791 by the US Congress to raise money for the government and create a common currency (alongside a federal excise tax and the US Mint). It had private investors (not government owned), but faced opposition from southern politicians who feared federal power overtaking state power. So, the First Bank's charter was written to expire in 20 years. State governments could and did also incorporate corporations through special legislation. In 1811, New York became the first state to have a simple public registration procedure to start corporations (not specific permission from the legislature) for manufacturing business. It also allowed investors to have limited liability, so that if the enterprise went bankrupt investors would lose their investment, but not any extra debts that had been run up to creditors. An early US Supreme Court case, Trustees of Dartmouth College v Woodward, went so far as to say that once a corporation was established a state legislature (in this case, New Hampshire) could not amend it. States quickly reacted by reserving the right to regulate future dealings by corporations. Generally speaking, corporations were treated as "legal persons" with separate legal personality from its shareholders, directors or employees. Corporations were the subject of legal rights and duties: they could make contracts, hold property or commission torts, but there was no necessary requirement to treat a corporation as favorably as a real person.

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