Business and Commercial Law: Why Bankrupt Means Broken Bench
How merchants, companies, bills of exchange, competition rules and insolvency shaped the legal machinery of trade.
Try 3 questions
1. Medieval 'lex mercatoria,' the law merchant, was mainly what?
- Customs that merchants made and applied themselves
- A code issued by the Holy Roman Emperor
- Roman law rediscovered and applied unchanged
Show the answer
Answer: Customs that merchants made and applied themselves
Traders at fairs and ports developed their own usages and courts, valuing speed and good faith; much of modern commercial law grew from them.
2. Why did commercial law historically develop separately from general civil law?
- Traders needed speed, credit and informality
- Merchants were exempt from every tax
- Civil courts refused to hear any debt
Show the answer
Answer: Traders needed speed, credit and informality
Slow, formal civil procedures and rules suited landholding poorly; trade required quick enforcement, flexible proof and protection of credit.
3. When a business is sold as a going concern, buyers often pay more than its assets are worth. What explains the difference?
- Hidden taxes still owed by the seller
- Goodwill, such as clientele and reputation
- The legal cost of the sale's paperwork
Show the answer
Answer: Goodwill, such as clientele and reputation
An organized enterprise with customers, reputation and know-how is worth more than its separate assets; law protects that value as goodwill.
The whole quiz comes before your apps
BrainTok asks a few questions like these before the apps you choose open, so your screen time turns into learning. For iPhone.
Join the beta