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Corporate Personality
• Creature theory
• Group theory
• Person theory
Creature Theory
• The corporation is a creature of the state for
it exists thanks to the act of incorporation.
• Unlike a natural person, a corporation has
no pre-existing rights.
• The only rights are those spelled out in its
charter.
• As a legal entity it is a persona ficta, an
artificial or juristic person.
Group Theory
• Man, as an independent and free being, has
the right to join freely with other persons and
to form associations.
• Those associations can take on an existence
of their own.
• However, corporate rights in reality are the
rights of the component members.
• A corporate name is nothing other than a way
of recognizing the members of the group.
