ENTITIES WITHOUT LEGAL PERSONALITY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE GERMAN LAW. COMPARATIVE LAW REMARKS

The study presents the situation of entities without legal personality in the German law together with comparative remarks with respect to analogous entities in the Polish, French and English law. In particular, the article describes the legal status of associations in formation, partnerships, companies and cooperatives in formation. An association in formation is an entity which, on the base of association registration, can acquire legal personality and become a formal association and take on rights and obligations. There are also unregistered associations which have legal capacity for certain actions but do not have a legal personality. The study presents partnerships and divides them into civil, general partnerships and limited partnerships. Partnerships do not have a legal personality but general and limited partnerships have legal capacity. In the case of companies in formation the German doctrine points out three stages of organization: 1) before signing the company contract, 2) company in organization after concluding the contract and 3) company after registration. Companies in organization have legal capacity.