Siège social (
French, usually translated as "head office") is a concept in
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
for determining the
nationality
Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
of
companies
A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...
. It is essentially based on effective nationality, as opposed to “paper nationality”, where the company has been incorporated. However, the effective nationality requires a genuine link to the corporate activity and describes the nationality based on the location of the actual activity of the corporation by where the owners are or the actual business is done.
According to the criterion of ''siège social'', ''siège réel'' or ''siege réel social'', a company's nationality derives from “the place where the legal entity's judicial and economic integration is situated”.
[Xanthaki, ''The establishment of foreign companies in France'', 17 The Company Lawyer (1996), at 28.] In other words, it is the company's principal place of establishment.
See also
*
Seat (legal entity)
In legal English, the seat of any organization is the center of authority.
Commercial
The seat of a corporation is the publicly registered headquarters, or registered office of a corporate entity. Also referred to as the siège reel, or head o ...
References
International law
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