法律翻译知识Lesson 9 Company Law
I.课文及译文
1.概述
公司法（company law，亦作 corporate law，或者 corporation law)是有关股东、董事、雇员、债权人和其他利益相关者(如消费者、社会和环境等)之间如何依据企业内部规则相互发生联系的学问。不过更确切地说，corporate law只是 companies law 或 law ofbusiness associations 的一部分，后者的内容更为广泛。在英国，公司的类型还包括合伙企业、信托企业（比如养老金信托公司）、股份有限公司和担保有限责任公司(如大学和慈善组织）。美国的一般分为C公司、S公司、封闭公司、专业公司以及非营利公司。
1，GeneralIntroduction
Company law(also “corporate” or “corporations”law) isthe study of how shareholders, directors,employees,creditors, and otherstakeholders such as consumers, the community and the environment interact withone another under the internal rules of the firm. Corporate law is a part of abroader companies law(or law of business associations). In UK, other types ofbusiness associations can include partnerships, trusts(like a pension fund),corporations limited by shares or companies limited by guarantee(like someuniversities or charities). US corporations are generally classified into Corporations,S Corporations, close corporations, public corporations, professionalcorporations and non-for-profit corporations.
现代公司的四个特征是：
（1）公司有独立法律人格（可以以公司自己的名义去起诉和应诉，即法律将公司视为人）；
（2）股东承担有限责任（当公司无清偿债务能力时，股东仅以其认购的股份为限对公司承担责任）;
（3）发行股票(通常是在证券交易所交易的股票，比如在伦敦证券交易所和纽约证券交易所）；
（4）委托管理(董事会控制公司）。
公司法主要包括公司治理和公司财务管理，前者内容是公司内部的各种权力关系，后者的内容是资本的使用规则。
The four characteristics of the modern corporationare:
(1)Separate Legal Personality of the corporation(theright to sue and be sued in its own name i.e the law treats the company as ahuman being);
(2)Limited Liability of the shareholders(so that when thecompany is insolvent, they only owe the money that they subscribed for inshares);
(3)Shares(usually on a stock exchange, such as the LondonStock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange);
(4)Delegated Management(in other words,control of thecompany placed in the hands of a board of directors).
Corporate law is often divided into corporategovernance(which concerns the various power relations within a corporation)andcorporate finance(which concerns the rules on how capital is used).
