NEW CONCEPTS IN ROMANIAN PRIVATE LAW: THE ENTERPRISE

The new concept of enterprise is laid down in new Civil Code in connection with another new concept: the professional (entrepreneur). The old commercial terms, commercial acts and deeds and merchant, have been well represented in legal texts in comparison with present concepts. Our new code imported these concepts together with their weaknesses from the Italian and Quebec Codes. The short references within the Code to enterprise and professional put again the burden of clarification on the scholars’ shoulders.The law defines the professionals as the persons who carry on an enterprise and therefore the legislator pursues to the ‘carrying on an enterprise” definition. Doing so, in fact the legislator leaves the enterprise concept undefined. The carrying on by one or more persons of an organised economic activity, whether or not it is “commercial” in nature, consisting of producing, administering or alienating property or providing a service, constitutes the carrying on of an enterprise. The enterprise is a term long time connected with commercial and private law. All past decades, beginning with the old Commercial code, then socialist economy and post-communist era used intensively the concept of enterprise. The meaning of this term differed substantially in every decade. Present notion need scientific scrutiny in order to crystallize a convergent approach. In our paper we will consider the notion of enterprise starting from the past perception of this concept then we will try to observe the variety of enterprises under present law.