Foundations in Civil Law
The term "foundation," in general, is used to describe a distinct legal entity.
Foundations as legal structures (legal entities) and/or legal persons (legal personality), may have a diversity of forms and may follow diverse regulations depending on the jurisdiction where they are created.
In some jurisdictions, a foundation may acquire its legal personality when it is entered in a public registry, while in other countries a foundation may acquire legal personality by the mere action of creation through a required document. Unlike a company, foundations have no shareholders, though they may have a board, an assembly and voting members. A foundation may hold assets in its own name for the purposes set out in its constitutive documents, and its administration and operation are carried out in accordance with its statutes or articles of association rather than fiduciary principles. The foundation has a distinct patrimony independent of its founder.
Foundations are often set up for charitable purposes, family patrimony and collective purposes.
Read more about this topic: Foundation (non-profit)
Famous quotes containing the words foundations, civil and/or law:
“The aggregate of all knowledge has not yet become culture in us. Rather it would seem as if, with the progressive scientific penetration and dissection of reality, the foundations of our thinking grow ever more precarious and unstable.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Concord’s little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)