Chapter 1

To merchants in general and the acts of commerce

Art. 1 the law declares merchants to all individuals who, having legal capacity
to contract, present on their own account acts of commerce, making that a
habitual profession.
Art. 2 In general terms merchant is someone who makes a profession of
buying and selling merchandise. A merchant is particularly called the person
who buys and manufactures merchandise in order to sell it by wholesale or
retail.
Merchants are also those who sell merchandise that they have not
manufactured themselves such as booksellers, haberdashers and shopkeepers
of every class.
Art. 3 Retail merchants are those who habitually, on the things that are
measured, sell by meters or liters; and the things weighted less than 10 (ten)
kilograms, and the things which are counted in single packages.
Art. 4 Are merchants and traders those who engaged in ventures abroad,
the same with the ones who limit their traffic within the state, whether they
are engaged in a single branch or in several branches of commerce at the
same time.
Art. 5. All people who have merchant quality, according to the law, are
subjected to commercial, jurisdiction, regulations and legislation.
Acts of merchants are always presumed to be acts of commerce, in the
absence of evidence to the contrary.
Art. 6. Those who perform accidentally any act of commerce are not
considered merchants. However, they are subject to, in respect of the
controversies which occur on such transactions, to the commercial laws and
jurisdictions.
Art. 7. If an act is comercial for one of the parties, all contracting parties stay
because of it, subject to commercial laws, except for the provisions to the
people of merchants, and unless it appears from the provisions of the said law
it appears it refers only to the contractor to whom the act is commercial.