The Merchant and the

Commercial Operation
The legislator defines merchant and his
obligation because the merchant is the base of
the commercial rules of the law.
The merchant maybe an individual or company
which means a group of people

Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa

 The Merchant
The legislator defines the merchant in article 10
of the law of commerce that”
1- Each one exercises professionally under his
name and his behalf a commercial operation.
2- Each company takes one of the forms
provided in the legislations of companies
whatever the purpose of the company which
has established for.

Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa

 The Merchant is an individual
When the merchant is an individual, there are
three conditions must be exited to enable him to
have this adjective. These conditions are:
1- Exercising a commercial operation. The
commercial operation means one or more of the
operations mentioned in the articles 4,5,6,7,8
2- Exercising professionally the commercial
operation.
Operation means in a repeated constant and
organized way to make profit

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3- Exercising the work under his own name and
in his behalf. It means he exercise the work
independently if he works under the name of
the other, he is not a merchant.

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 The merchant is a company
The commercial law considers any company
established according to the company’s law is a
merchant whatever the purpose of the
company.

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 The obligations of the merchant

There are two obligations on the merchant:

1- Keeping commercial books
2- Register his name in the commercial
registration department

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 1- Keeping commercial books
The merchant has to keep some kind of commercial
books
There is no merchant without commercial books
reflecting the movement of his transactions.
Like :
Journal, ledger ….etc
The merchant obliged to book keeping
The legislator defines the merchant obliged to the
book keeping by providing in article 21 of the
commercial law that each merchant his capital
invested in commerce exceeds twenty thousand
pounds must hold the books requested by the
nature importance of his trade
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 Keeping a copy of documents
The merchant is obliged to keep all the
documents in the same arrangement of
recording in the books

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 2- Commercial Registration
It is the second obligation on the merchant. The
merchant must register himself in the
commercial registration department, to be able
to exercise the commerce and to publicized his
name.

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 The commercial Operations

The legislator defined the commercial operations

from the article four to article nine:
We can divided the commercial operations to four
subsections

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 First: The absolute commercial operations:
1- purchase the goods for sell or for rent
2- Rent goods for rent
3- formation of the commercial companies
4- The operations belonging to marine and air navigation, ht
includes
A- constructing the ships and airplanes, repairing and
maintenance
B- purchasing, selling and chartering the ships and airplanes
C- purchasing the tools and provisions material of ships and
airplane
D- Maritime and air transportation
E- The sea men and pilots and other workers who work in
ships and airplanes

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 Second :The commercial operations by profession

These operations are:

A- providing goods and services
B- Industry
C- Land transport, and river transportation
D- commercial agency and brokerage
E- different kind of insurance
F- banking operations and money exchange operation
G- storage the goods and crops
H- publishing operations, printing, photocopies, typewriter,
translations, broadcasting, television, press , news , post,
and advertising
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I- commercial using computer programs, radio
communication through satellites
J- mining and sources of petroleum and gas
operations
K- Poultry projects
L- contractors business
M- building premises, purchasing or tenancy to
sell or tenant
N- tourism offices, export and import agencies
O- Hotels operations, cinema, circus and others
P- projects of distribution the water, gas,
electricity and power sources

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 Third: Relative commercial operations

this kind of commercial operations depend on the

merchant adjective. It means that every work done
by the merchant is a commercial work.
The legislator decides in the article 8 of the
commercial law that:
1- the works of the merchant belonging to his trade
consider commercial operations
2- every work done by the merchant is considered
belonging to his trade unless is evidences the
contrary
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 Fourth: Mixed commercial Operations

This kind of operations supposed that two

parties of the act are different.
One is merchant and the other isn’t merchant.
There’s an act will be commercial from the side
of merchant and will be civilian from the side of
the non merchant party

Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa