Business and Commercial Law Terms

This section explains the legal vocabulary readers encounter when forming organizations, allocating management duties, handling commercial transactions, and resolving business disputes or insolvency problems.

Planned cornerstone topics include LLC, corporation, partnership, fiduciary duty, shareholder, merger, bankruptcy, secured transaction, antitrust, and the UCC.

For adjacent ideas about contracts and remedies, start with Contract, Indemnification, Liability, and Remedy.

In this section

• Antitrust in U.S. Business Law
  Antitrust refers to the body of law that regulates competition and prohibits certain anticompetitive conduct or transactions.
• Bankruptcy in U.S. Business Law
  Bankruptcy is the federal legal process used to address insolvency, restructure obligations, or liquidate assets under court supervision.
• Corporation in U.S. Business Law
  A corporation is a legal entity separate from its owners, with its own rights, obligations, and governance structure.
• Fiduciary Duty in Business Law
  Fiduciary duty is the legal obligation to act loyally and carefully for the benefit of another person or entity in a position of trust.
• Limited Liability Company (LLC) in U.S. Business Law
  A limited liability company is a business entity that combines liability protection with flexible ownership and management structure.
• Merger in Corporate Law
  A merger is a transaction in which one business entity combines with another under a legal structure recognized by statute.
• Partnership in Business Law
  A partnership is a business relationship in which two or more people carry on a business together as co-owners.
• Secured Transaction under the UCC
  A secured transaction is a transaction in which a debtor grants a security interest in personal property to secure an obligation.
• Shareholder in Corporate Law
  A shareholder is an owner of shares in a corporation and holds ownership interests defined by corporate law and the corporation's governing documents.
• Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) in U.S. Commercial Law
  The Uniform Commercial Code is a model-law framework that governs many commercial transactions in the United States.