S.A. (corporation)
This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2009) |
This article is part of a series on |
Corporate law |
---|
![]() |
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Banque_de_Montreux_1900.jpg/300px-Banque_de_Montreux_1900.jpg)
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 employ civil law. Originally, shareholders could be literally anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were therefore paid to whoever held the certificate. Share certificates could be transferred privately, and therefore the management of the company would not necessarily know who owned its shares.
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 in order to obscure the beneficiary.
In different countries
S.A. can be an abbreviation of:
- Sociedade Anónima in Galician and European Portuguese (used in Portugal, Timor Leste, Macao, and Lusophone Africa)
- Sociedade Anônima in Brazilian Portuguese (used in Brazil)
- Sociedá Anónima in Asturian and Leonese
- Societat Anònima in Catalan
- Société anonyme (SA) in French (as used in French-speaking countries such as France (including French Polynesia, and New Caledonia) and Monaco; also in partially Francophone countries and/or nations with French as one of their official languages like Belgium (where it is equivalent to a naamloze vennootschap), Luxembourg (also identifiable in Luxembourgish as Aktiegesellschaft), Haiti, Switzerland (where it is equivalent to an Aktiengesellschaft or a Società Anonima), as well as Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco,[1] Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Algeria and other African countries)
- Société par actions in Canadian French
- Società Anonima in Swiss Italian (in Italy replaced by Società per azioni, S.p.A., since 1942)
- Sociedad Anónima or Sociedad por Acciones in Spanish
- Mexican law also takes into account the variability of the corporate stock, resulting in most S.A. turning into Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable (S.A. de C.V.), or Sociedad Anónima Bursátil de Capital Variable (S.A.B. de C.V.) for publicly traded companies.
- Mexico also has Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada de Capital Variable (S. de R.L. de C.V.), which is analogous to the limited liability company.
- Spółka Akcyjna in Polish
- Societate pe Acțiuni in Romanian
The Greek term Anonymi Etaireia (Ανώνυμη Εταιρεία, A.E.) is usually translated into S.A. in English and foreign languages.
It is equivalent in literal meaning and function to:
- Naamloze vennootschap (N.V.) in Dutch
- Perseroan Terbatas Terbuka (P.T. Tbk.) in Indonesia
- Berhad (Bhd.) in Malaysia
- Anonim Şirket (A.Ş.) or Anonim Ortaklık (A.O.) in Turkish
- Corporación anónima (C.A.) in Ecuador and Venezuela
It is equivalent in function to:[citation needed]
- Shoqëri Aksionare (Sh.a.) in Albanian
- شركة مساهمة عامة ذات مسؤولية محدودة ش.ذ.م.م, Sharikah musāhamah ʿāmmah dhāt mas'ūliyyah maḥdūdah (lit. 'Public share company with limited liability') in Arabic
- Dioničko društvo (d.d.) in Croatian and Bosnian
- Акционерно дружество, Aktsionerno druzhestvo (АД) in Bulgarian
- Акционерско друштво, Aktsionersko drushtvo (АД) in Macedonian
- Akciová společnost (a.s.) in Czech
- Aktieselskab (A/S) in Danish
- Société anonyme égyptienne (S.A.E.) or شركة مساهمة مصرية (Sherka mosahama Maṣreyya, lit. 'Egyptian share company', abbreviated ش.م.م) in Egypt
- Osakeyhtiö (Oy) in Finnish
- Aktsiaselts (AS) in Estonian
- Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in German[2]
- Részvénytársaság (Rt) in Hungarian
- Hlutafélag (Hf) in Icelandic
- Private Limited (Pvt. Ltd.) in India
- Public limited company (plc) in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and several Commonwealth countries
- Kabushiki gaisha (K.K.) or 株式会社 in Japan
- Jusighoesa (J) or 주식회사 in Korea[clarification needed]
- Société anonyme laotienne (S.A.L.) in Laos
- Akcinė bendrovė (AB) in Lithuanian
- Akciju sabiedrība (AS) in Latvian
- Aksjeselskap (AS) in Norwegian
- Акционерное общество, Aktsionernoye obshchestvo (AO) in Russian
- Деоничарско друштво, Deoničarsko društvo (d.d.), or Акционарско друштво, Akcionarsko društvo (a.d.) in Serbian
- Private Limited (Pte. Ltd.) in Singapore
- Akciová spoločnosť (a.s.) in Slovak
- Delniška družba (d.d.) in Slovene[citation needed]
- Aktiebolag (AB) in Swedish
- Акціонерне товариство, Aktsionerne tovarystvo (AT) in Ukrainian
- Publicly traded company or Incorporated (Inc.) in the United States, though the former term does not appear in the names of business entities
- Compañía Anónima (C.A.) in Andorra
- ក.អ(ក្រុមហ៊ុនអនាមិក) or Société anonyme cambodgienne (S.A.C.; lit. 'Cambodian share company') in Cambodia
- Công ti cổ phần in Vietnam
- 股份有限公司 in Chinese
See also
References
- ^ "Note de synthèse - Fonctionnement de la SA". 6 January 2021.
- ^ "26 CFR 301.7701-2 - Business entities; definitions. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute". www.law.cornell.edu.
(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.
- ^ Depending on language, SA can mean anonymous company, anonymous partnership, share company, or joint-stock company. See § In different countries.
External links
- Articles containing French-language text
- Articles containing German-language text
- Articles with short description
- Articles needing additional references from December 2009
- All articles needing additional references
- Articles containing Galician-language text
- Articles containing Portuguese-language text
- Articles containing Asturian-language text
- Articles containing Catalan-language text
- Articles containing Luxembourgish-language text
- Articles containing Italian-language text
- Articles containing Spanish-language text
- Articles containing Polish-language text
- Articles containing Romanian-language text
- Articles containing Greek-language text
- Articles containing Dutch-language text
- Articles containing Indonesian-language text
- Articles containing Malay (macrolanguage)-language text
- Articles containing Turkish-language text
- All articles with unsourced statements
- Articles with unsourced statements from December 2016
- Articles containing Albanian-language text
- Articles containing Arabic-language text
- Articles containing Croatian-language text
- Articles containing Bulgarian-language text
- Articles containing Macedonian-language text
- Articles containing Czech-language text
- Articles containing Danish-language text
- Articles containing Egyptian Arabic-language text
- Articles containing Finnish-language text
- Articles containing Estonian-language text
- Articles containing Hungarian-language text
- Articles containing Icelandic-language text
- Articles containing Japanese-language text
- Articles containing Korean-language text
- Justapedia articles needing clarification from December 2018
- Articles with invalid date parameter in template
- Articles containing Lithuanian-language text
- Articles containing Latvian-language text
- Articles containing Norwegian-language text
- Articles containing Russian-language text
- Articles containing Serbian-language text
- Articles containing Slovak-language text
- Articles containing Slovene-language text
- Articles containing Swedish-language text
- Articles containing Ukrainian-language text
- Articles containing Khmer-language text
- Articles containing Vietnamese-language text
- Articles containing Mandarin Chinese-language text
- Types of business entity
- Types of companies of France