DOI: 10.47743/jss-2023-69-2-10

Abstract: Initially creating a legal order based on abstract techniques and procedures, company law seems to be undergoing transformations, today, under the impulse of the phenomenon of ”deformalization” of law. Now, its two basic concepts – the company and legal personality – are frequently used not so much for the recognized purpose of reducing the costs or, in general, the risks of running a business, by separating personal and professional assets, but rather as the means by which shareholders can evade personal liability. Seeking to regain its effectiveness, contemporary company law embraces the principle of economic reality through a concept - which deserves all our attention - that of the enterprise. What should be remembered from this analysis is, in our opinion, the fact that the ”enterprise” is only a mechanism that allows the achievement of certain objectives, and not the foundation of the transmission of this responsibility. It is more realistic and correct from a legal point of view, therefore, to focus our attention on the ”additional considerations” (as one author suggested), specific to each branch of law, including the corporate one, which allow us to hold companies liable. Returning to the relationship of the enterprise with company law, we should accept, however, the fact that, by its very definition, the enterprise makes the connection between company law and the so-called economic laws, which currently influence its fundamental concepts to impose their purpose. We maintain our opinion expressed, on another occasion, in the sense of the inclusion of actual company law in the more general trend of the prevalence of economic realism over law.

Key-words: deformalization, ”architectures”, company, legal personality, enterprise, the prevalence of the economy.

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