creditor

creditor

a person or commercial enterprise to whom money is owed

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Creditor

 

(obligor).(l) The party in an obligation that has the right to demand from the other party (the debtor or obligee) the performance or abstention from performance of a certain action. Only persons having legal rights and duties, that is, citizens and legal “persons” (such as corporations), may act as creditors. In the USSR the Soviet socialist state is a specific principal or party in civil law.

In an obligation there can be several creditors (a plurality of creditors). Each of them can demand the execution of a certain part or, in instances stipulated in a contract or in the law, the entirety of an action (for example, when the object of the obligation is indivisible or when there is joint suretyship or a joint tort).

(2) In bookkeeping, a term used to designate a citizen or legal entity toward which a given organization has an indebtedness, as shown on its balance sheet.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.