Charter (redirected from Corporate charter)

charter, document granting certain rights, powers, or functions. It may be issued by the sovereign body of a state to a local governing body, university, or other corporation or by the constituted authority of a society or order to a local unit. The term was widely applied to various royal grants of rights in the Middle Ages and in early modern times. The most famous political charter is the Magna Carta of England. Chartered companies held broad powers of trade and government by royal charter. In colonial America, chartered colonies were in theory, and to an extent in fact, less subject to royal interference than were royal colonies.

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charter

Document granting certain specified rights, powers, privileges, or functions from the sovereign power of a state to a person, corporation, city, or other unit of local organization. In Magna Carta (1215), King John granted certain liberties to the English people. Elsewhere in medieval Europe, monarchs issued charters to towns, guilds, universities, and other institutions, granting the institution certain privileges and sometimes specifying how they should conduct their internal affairs. Later, charters were granted to overseas trading companies (e.g., the British East India Co.), granting them monopolies in certain areas. Britain's colonies in North America were established by charter. Modern charters may be corporate or municipal. A corporate charter, issued by a governmental body, grants individuals the power to form a corporation, or limited-liability company. A municipal charter is a law that creates a new political subdivision and allows the people within it to organize themselves into a municipal corporation, in effect delegating to the people the powers of local self-government.

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charter

1. a formal document from the sovereign or state incorporating a city, bank, college, etc., and specifying its purposes and rights

2. a formal document granting or demanding from the sovereign power of a state certain rights or liberties

3. the fundamental principles of an organization; constitution

4. 

a. the hire or lease of transportation

b. the agreement or contract regulating this

c. (as modifier): a charter flight

5. a law, policy, or decision containing a loophole which allows a specified group to engage more easily in an activity considered undesirable

6. Maritime law another word for charterparty

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Charter 

(ustav), a body of rules regulating the structure, procedures, and activities of a state agency, enterprise, or institution or of a particular field of activity. Charters in the USSR include the Rules of Railroads of the USSR and the Statute on Secondary General-education Schools. Charters also regulate the armed forces of the USSR (see). Most charters are approved by the highest bodies of state authority in the USSR; the charters of some institutions and organizations are approved by the appropriate ministries and departments. Voluntary sports societies, the various artists’ unions, dacha-building and housing-construction cooperatives, and other organizations are also governed by charters.

Most international organizations have charters that outline their goals, organizational structure, and activities, for example, the Charter of the United Nations.