The Issue Of Partnerships and Legal Personality in England and Wales

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Law - Civil / Private / Trade / Anti Trust Law / Business Law, grade: First, University of Sunderland, language: English, abstract: This essay will attempt to answer the question of whether partnerships in England and Wales should have their own legal personality. One of the vagaries of English partnership law is that a partnership, or firm, is an unincorporated association, i.e. an organization without any distinct legal personality from its members. This entails that should one of the partners leave the partnership, whether by serving notice or through other reasons such as death, the partnership ceases to exist as the original relationship has ended. This is what sets an English partnership apart from those in other countries such as those in the EU or even Scotland. What this means for an English partnership is that it cannot hold property or enter contracts; being non-existent as a legal persona it cannot acquire rights and incur obligations