Paper's abstract

Jean Hilaire, An History of the Concept of Firm
French law lacks a very general definition of the firm, one that could be used under any circumstance or in any case. On the contrary, in it, the firm appears quite blurred and, so to speak, of a swing-wing nature depending on the considered branch of law. This follows from a very ancient tradition of the legislator who assimilated firm and contractor and limited himself, still in the trade code of 1807, to a distinct study of persons and goods in commercial law without establishing any organic link between the human resources and the material resources of the firm. But without ever giving a global definition since half a century, the legislator has been led to personalise the firm in various fields. Could not, then, the economic reality of the firm be winning over the rigidities of the French tradition by crossing, as such, the legal threshold?

Key Words : firm, history
t. 41, 1997 : p. 341-354

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