A Study On Legal Institutions On One-man Company

One-man company can be defined in a broad sense and a narrow sense. In the narrow sense, a one-man company refers to a company whose shareholder and investor is the same one person, and this kind of companies is formal one-man company. The one-man companies in broad sense include formal one-man companies and essential one-man companies which have plural nominal shareholders, while, in fact, only of them really holds shares. Essential one-man companies have been in existence for a long time. And they had been very prevalent. Contrarily, formal one-man companies have experienced a hard and long process of being discriminated at the early period, then recognized and finally accepted for the first time in 1925, when Liechtenstein enacted Natural Person and Company Law and gave them a legal status.While, today, academic discussions about one-man company continue. The scholars who are for and those against still stick firmly to their own opinions. In the author's opinion, the existence of one-man company is an economical phenomenon resulting from the play of supply and demand, and it can't be eliminated by simple prohibiting it in law. Compared with blocking, conducting may be a better way. To bring one-person company under law to be regulated accordingly may be more appropriate.In the early period of legislation on one-man company, most countries adopt an attitude of strict prohibition. However, with development of society and economy, people have gradually got a better understanding of this phenomenon. Now, many countries have changed their previous attitude of strict prohibition and started to enact laws to recognize them, these countries include the US, Japan, Germany, France, etc. While, according to traditional laws on company, companies are associational legal persons. The association characteristic of a company comes from the fact that companies are usually composed of plural members. Therefore,...