Contexts
Legal
Translation Equivalents
- Commercial Enterprise
Analysis
A commercial enterprise in Chinese law is any person, group, or business entity that is engaging in for-profit activity. In American law, this is known as a commercial enterprise and is typically used as a catch-all for commercial regulation. Use of this term in legal documents is essential in order to be unambiguous about the legal results that will occur for parties that are doing business. The Chinese and English use different semiotics, one referring to a place (the market) and the other using symbolism of activity (commerce). The semiotics does not create an ontological difference.
A significant amount of confusion has arisen among Chinese>English translators over what constitutes an “enterprise.” To make it clearer, the enterprise designation is broader than the entity designation in English.
See our Article Chinese law for more details.