There are a lot of different types of law, and most of them have many similarities. It is easy to get commercial law and corporate law mixed up because they both deal with businesses.
While these terms may be used interchangeably, there are quite a few differences between them, the main one being they govern two different sides of an organisation's operations.
Corporate law focusses on the formation of companies and how they are operated and managed, assisting them with their duties, obligations, and legal rights. Fundamentally, it is about corporations, artificial entities that the law deems to be legal persons. Corporate law issues are usually related to the ideas, launch, structuring, and growth of a business. This could be things like (but not limited to):
On the other hand, commercial law is related to the sale, distribution, or purchase of goods and services. Commercial law is centred around transactional activities, like financing, litigating disputes, franchising, and leasing property. There are a wide variety of issues commercial lawyers handle and represent, such as (but not limited to):
Commercial law has a much larger scope of focus than corporate law does simply because corporate law focuses solely on corporations. Commercial law also intersects with other law practices, like labour law, franchising law, intellectual property law, consumer law, international trade law, and contract law.
Because of their broad reach, commercial lawyers deal with sole traders, small businesses, partnerships, and companies in general. As mentioned above, corporate lawyers deal mostly with corporations and investors, highly specialised and top-level.
Despite all their differences, corporate and commercial law have some similarities as well. They deal with a lot of the same things with regards to corporate transactions and commercial contracts, as well as intellectual property rights.
Mergers and acquisitions are something that is shared between both schools of law. In corporate law, mergers and acquisitions are centred on the legal framework around merging two companies. Commercial law deals with contracts like collecting and analysing all legal documents for a business, known as due diligence, negotiation, and documentation.
These agreements are also both handled by corporate and commercial lawyers. Joint ventures are focussed around things like drafts for partnership agreements and resolving disputes. Corporate law focuses on forming the joint venture entity, whereas commercial law might organise the contracts between the partners.
Licensing agreements are agreements that involve intellectual property rights and how the licensing party is structured. Corporate law deals with the authority of the company to enter the licence agreement, and commercial law would handle the terms and conditions of the licence.
Commercial disputes, litigation, and arbitration also involve both corporate and commercial lawyers. In commercial disputes, both types of lawyers can be involved in resolving disputes in business contracts or with shareholder contracts, and disputes regarding intellectual property. This could be for a number of things like trademarking, patents, or even copyright disputes. Both types of lawyers might also be required to represent their clients in court or private cases if the situation calls for it.
It is important to know the correct legal advice to seek for your business. As we can see, on the surface corporate and commercial law seems similar but upon a deeper look they are vastly different and can help different areas of businesses in a variety of ways.
If you don’t seek the correct legal advice for your business, you risk hiring lawyers who aren’t specialised for the work you require. When you have the right lawyers helping you with any issues or contractual obligations, it makes a world of difference.
Should you require any help with understanding or challenging your legal fees,
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