S.A. (corporation)

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Share of the Banque de Montreux, issued 20 November 1900. Societes anonymes were common in Switzerland at this time. Banque de Montreux 1900.jpg
Share of the Banque de Montreux, issued 20 November 1900. Sociétés anonymes were common in Switzerland at this time.

The abbreviation S.A. or SA [a] designates a type of limited company in certain countries, most of which have a Romance language as their official language and operate a derivative of the 1804, Napoleonic, civil law. [1] Originally, shareholders could be anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were paid to whomever held the certificate. Since share certificates could be transferred privately, corporate management would not necessarily know who owned its shares – nor did anyone but the holders.

Contents

As with bearer bonds, anonymous unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to audit the practice. Nowadays, shareholders of S.A.s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by a holding company to obscure the beneficiary.

Variations

Abbreviation

S.A. can be an abbreviation of:

"SA" is part of the name of lots of corporations named after an acronym: some examples are Cepsa, originally Compañía Española de Petróleos, Sociedad Anónima, "Spanish petroleum company, S.A."; [4] Sabena, originally Societé anonyme belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation aérienne, "Belgian S.A. of exploitation of air navigation".

Literal meaning

It is equivalent in literal meaning and function to:

Function

It is equivalent in function to:

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Société Anonyme (S.A.): Definition, Examples, Requirements". Investopedia. Archived from the original on 2024-02-28. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  2. 1 2 "公司的種類及股東的責任" (in Chinese). 澳門青年創業孵化中心. Archived from the original on 2023-09-19. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  3. ↑ "Note de synthèse – Fonctionnement de la SA" (in Spanish). 6 January 2021. Archived from the original on 11 March 2024. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  4. ↑ Escolar, Arsenio (6 November 2024). "El petróleo ahora mancha incluso las marcas y la reputación". elDiario.es (in European Spanish). Retrieved 7 November 2024.
  5. ↑ "26 CFR 301.7701-2 – Business entities; definitions. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute". Legal Information Institute. Archived from the original on 2020-11-07. Retrieved 2018-03-05. (v)Multilingual countries. Different linguistic renderings of the name of an entity listed in paragraph (b)(8)(i) of this section shall be disregarded. For example, an entity formed under the laws of Switzerland as a Societe Anonyme will be a corporation and treated in the same manner as an Aktiengesellschaft.
  6. ↑ "G.R. No. L-37331". Lawphil Project. Retrieved 2024-08-18.
  1. ↑ Depending on language, SA can mean anonymous company, anonymous partnership, share company, or joint-stock company . See § In different countries.
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