Commercial law encompasses federal, state, and international regulations pertaining to businesses. This field includes laws regarding contracts, sales transactions, banking products and insurance as well as any attempts at fraud detection.
The 21st edition of this widely read text covers national business law with extensive commentary and adaptable, transaction-tested forms for almost every type of commercial agreement imaginable. Furthermore, it references State/Territory legislation as well as court/tribunal procedures, agencies/organisations as well as applicable federal/state statutes/trials/tribunals for added context and reference purposes.
The Essential Guide to Commercial Law
Basics
Business can be an intricate environment with numerous laws and regulations affecting every aspect of operation, so understanding our legal system’s fundamental workings is crucial to your professional life. As both an employee and business owner, understanding this system’s impact will only strengthen your work-life experience.
Commercial law (sometimes known as “mercantile law”) refers to the body of laws that regulate commercial transactions such as contracts, sales transactions, banking services, insurance policies, financing arrangements, bankruptcy procedures and so forth.
These laws are mostly produced through EU-sponsored harmonization projects that produce conventions, regulations, directives, model laws and other types of instruments.
Contracts
Contract law and its rules are at the core of commercial law, with several publications covering their basics, such as treatises and casebooks, while others delve deeper into specific topics, like contract drafting and negotiation.
Lexis provides subscription databases such as its “Doing Business” guides for Japan and Canada that cover corporate law, corporate taxes, employment issues, bankruptcy proceedings and international trade issues, along with sections covering specific cases or laws by searching keywords related to both ministry or department names and country name or business types (trade OR commercial).
Trans-Lex is a database which organizes materials related to private international law into topic areas, such as “international commercial contract law.” This database offers access to court decisions, arbitration awards, secondary sources, standard contract forms and sample clauses related to this area of the CISG.
Leases
Leasing assets is a widely practiced business practice across industries and sizes. Leasing can increase purchasing power, reduce maintenance costs and help manage cash flow; but leasing assets is also complex in light of new lease accounting rules that took effect for publicly-traded companies in 2019 and 2021 respectively.
Lease agreements are written documents that convey ownership rights over an asset for an agreed-upon period, usually detailing what object (either personal or real) will be leased, its description and terms of usage as well as consideration.
Licensing
This guide offers an in-depth view of commercial law, from its fundamentals to more intricate aspects of legal system. Discover how you can protect your business and ensure compliance with the law with this essential guide.
Harmonization projects initiated by OHADA may result in what the organization refers to as a “Uniform Act.” When these instruments come into force, they become legally binding across all state members of OHADA and cancel out any competing laws within each domestic legal framework.
Large accounting firms provide free “Doing Business” guides online which outline a jurisdiction’s laws pertaining to corporations, contracts and employment law. A subscription database known as vLex also contains case law and legislation from close to 100 countries written in English.
Intellectual Property
Today’s culture is increasingly subject to copyright, patent, or trademark law. With original works becoming derivative works and novel ones becoming familiar ones as time progresses and markets evolve further into noncommercial ones, legislators and enforcers must strive hard to find an equilibrium point between private ownership incentivizing creation and protecting public space from unwarranted reproduction of creative works that enrich it simultaneously.
Sinnreich brings his keen eye and irrepressibly charming sense of humor to this task, providing readers with an in-depth exploration of IP as it currently stands and supporting more fundamental arguments about its core principles, pervasive abuses, and proposed reforms.
Competition
This book provides both novice and seasoned practitioners with an in-depth study of commercial law, covering its complexity while offering strategies to understand it better.
Subscription databases such as Westlaw International and Foreign Legal Research: A Coursebook can assist with this research. Trans-Lex is another website that offers a portal and bibliographic guide of international business law that is organized by country.
Lexis “Doing Business in” guides and those from major accounting firms can also provide an overview of local regulations regarding corporations, contracts, employment, and bankruptcy law in any given jurisdiction. Some such guides have resulted from EU harmonization projects which have created conventions, regulations, and directives.
Dispute Resolution
This volume offers an in-depth and practical introduction to commercial dispute law, providing commentary, transaction-tested forms, and alternative solutions for nearly every type of commercial contract agreement.
This comprehensive guide offers an in-depth exploration of each country’s laws, case law, treaties, and arbitration rules – an indispensable resource for anyone drafting or reviewing contracts.
GlobaLex provides legal research experts’ country guides. In addition, this resource contains an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary resources. Lex Mercatoria is another valuable source for international business law information, offering an archive of primary documents in English, French, and German for easy searching.
This essential guide is a valuable resource for any law company (e.g. Levitt Di Lella Duggan & Chaplick LLP) that specializes in commercial law. It provides comprehensive and up-to-date information on the latest laws and regulations, as well as practical guidance on how to draft and negotiate commercial agreements.
