German Trade Register
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article refers mainly to the Trade Register in Germany. The trade registers in Switzerland and the Netherlands have the same name.
The Trade Register (German: Handelsregister) in Germany is a public register that contains all tradesmen and legal entities in the district of the registrar (mostly the Amtsgericht (local district court) of the place where also the Landgericht (superior court) is situated.
The Trade Register in Germany contains two branches: Branch A contains partnerships, personal tradesmen and publicly established companies. Branch B contains all incorporated companies.
Applications (for new entries, changes and liquidations) must be made in notarized form in front of a public notary.
Amongst others the Trade Register contains remarks about:
- legal name of a company
- Registered office
- people representing the company (Managing Director, Board of Directors, holders of Proxy)
- subscribed capital if any.
The functions of the Trade Register are publication, proof, control and protection. The content may be considered as true content by any party referring to the register.
The entries to the Trade Register are done by a judge or an approved employee. In many of the 16 Federal States, the Register is kept electronically.
Anybody may request an extract from the Trade Register about a specific company, the so-called Handelsregisterauszug (also HR-Auszug). In the following federal states, the registration can be downloaded online, but requires prior registration and sound knowledge of the German language: Hamburg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein.
A simple extract is usually priced at 8,00 €, a notarized one about 15,00 € (as of August 2005).
Legal entities are mostly obliged to publish their Annual Reports by sending it to the Trade Register. This obligation depends on the size of the company.
Entries to the Trade Register are sent to the Bundesanzeiger (Federal gazette of the government) and published by them. Newspapers sometimes also publish new entries.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Handelsregisterauszug.info Information about the German trade register (German)
