Ltd. in English: legal nuances of translation

Surely, many leaders of limited liability companies, going international or offshore, signing contracts with foreign companies or applying to contractors abroad, faced the following problem: how to translate LLC in English? On this issue, for many years, not only translators, but also lawyers, "break spears". It would seem, which is simpler: to translate the words "limited liability company" and obtain a Limited liability company, abbreviated LLC, or the Joint stock company - JSC. According to the laws of English, an abbreviation is placed at the end of the title, for example, Karina LLC.

However, such translation of the LLC in English results in a lot of legal nuances that are not always beneficial for the head of an enterprise with limited liability. Even if we do not shock our potential foreign partners with this exotic word, and we translate the name of this form of property more familiar to them Ltd or Co Ltd, legal collisions can not be avoided anyway. First, if to be legally strict and meticulous, their Ltd and our LLC still differ from each other both in legal status and in organizational and legal form. In addition, the name of the limited liability company "Karina" will vary depending on the country in which this company will be represented: Karina GmbH in Germany, Carina SpA in Italy, TZOV Karina in Ukraine. But a company is registered in the Russian Federation!

The argument for translating the LLC in English rather than transliterating it is that large foreign corporations of the same form of ownership, "coming" to Russia, call themselves the three letters "O". For example, OOO Siemens. Arguing logically, if a foreign company (corporation), when entering the Russian market, calls itself the Russian abbreviation, why not translate our English abbreviation into English? However, such a translation will not reflect the country of incorporation of the corporation.

Head of the company when translating the abbreviation, which displays the form of ownership, can take into account the "Letter of the Bank of Russia", prescribing to write LLC in English in Latin letters. Comments on this letter were set forth in the journal International Banking Operations (No. 3 of 2005.) True, the recommendations to replace the three Russian letters "O" with three English letters "O" refer only to credit institutions and to other societies of owners and shareholders do not apply .. You can, of course, to show firmness, intransigence and to what extent the patriotism and call yourself a company to its foreign partners, but how then to disclose the full name of the organization, as that requires a form of contract - transcribe "society with restrictions liability company "?

Writing an LLC in English, in essence, does not look inorganic. After all, many foreign companies simply transliterate not only their form of ownership, but also the name. Let us recall, at least, Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Ferroli SpA, or Hans Weber Maschinenfabrik GmbH. The name of the company is also worth transliterating. The name of the company is like a person's name. After all, we are used to talking Michael Jackson, not Michael Jackson. If we want the name of the corporation to immediately say a lot about the nature of its activities, we can make a meaningful translation of the name in parentheses after the official name.

Some firms, in order to avoid complications with translation in the future, already include the word Co., Ltd. in the title. For example, Limited Liability Company "Topaz Ltd." Then in a foreign spelling they indicate: "Topaz Ltd" LLC. The translation into English of the Charter and official documents makes life easier for managers of such firms. Since there is no consensus on this matter, and "everything that is not forbidden, it is allowed", it depends on the leaders how they translate the abbreviation. Here you need to intuitively feel the most foreign partner. You can use LLC or Ltd in the company name, you can LLC. However, when specifying the details unambiguously we write transliteration - this, as the address of the company, is not translated.