Company formation

Every business begins as a set of legal choices made before there is anything to show for them. What form the company takes, who owns what, who may sign, who carries the risk when something goes wrong — these are settled at the start, quietly, and then govern everything that follows. Most founders meet them once, under time pressure, and do not look at them again until a disagreement or a sale makes the answers matter.

Company formation is therefore less about registration than about the structure a business will have to live inside for years. It reaches into how decisions get made, how money moves between owners and the company, and what happens when the people involved stop agreeing:

• the rules on which legal forms are available to you, what each one costs in formality and what it buys in protection;
• the rules on capital, contributions in kind and what a company must hold before it may begin trading;
• the rules on who directs the company, what a director may decide alone, and where personal liability begins;
• the rules on shareholder agreements — voting, deadlock, pre-emption, and how someone leaves;
• the rules on issuing, transferring and valuing shares, and on the classes that carry different rights;
• the rules on general meetings, minutes and the paperwork that proves a decision was properly taken;
• the rules on group structures, holding companies and how subsidiaries are governed across borders;
• the rules on restructuring the company itself — conversion, merger, demerger, and moving a seat.

Our lawyers can support you in all these areas of law.