Webster’s New World Law Dictionary defines commercial law as: “The substantive law concerning the purchase and sale of goods and related matters such as the financing of credit, secured transactions, and negotiable instruments. Most commercial law in the United States is set out in the Uniform Commercial Code.”
Business law, also known as “mercantile law”, has developed over over the centuries through business custom and trade usage and comprises all business transactions and agreements, whether written or oral, as formulated between two or more persons, whether natural or legal (e.g. corporations), which generate reciprocal rights for such “legal persons” under the law and is documented in a wide range of regulations spanning from local administrative and tax law to national laws, including the Constitution, and even international treaties.
In today’s business environment, business owners and entrepreneurs are required to comply with a myriad of governmental regulations while, at the same time, they find themselves under tremendous pressure to compete in today’s market, faced with an ever more discriminating and demanding marketplace. And today, as if that weren’t enough, that same marketplace has now been “beamed” into “cyberspace,” which has become a whole new competitive arena with a steep learning curve all its own.
As a result, it is increasingly difficult, especially for small business entrepreneurs, to be competitive. They are continually forced to keep track of, comply with, and avoid the pitfalls of an ever-growing complexity of governmental regulations. All that red tape can make it almost impossible for entrepreneurs to focus on their core business at all.
Sometimes it’s just more cost effective to let somebody else deal with the red tape and safer too!