Questioning Contractual and Legal Definitions of Liability in Spanish Bankruptcy Proceedings. A Catalan Business Partnership in the Aftermath of the Peninsular War - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Pré-Publication, Document De Travail Année : 2020

Questioning Contractual and Legal Definitions of Liability in Spanish Bankruptcy Proceedings. A Catalan Business Partnership in the Aftermath of the Peninsular War

Résumé

While Spain has remained absent from the historiography of bankruptcy, its commercial courts archives, as in the case of Barcelona, can offer the historian a rich but understudied documentation that allows to further the history of bankruptcy and of merchants’ adaptations to wartime. Through the analysis of a medium-sized Catalan business partnership’s bankruptcy proceedings (1813-1822), this contribution highlights how bankruptcy proceedings at Barcelona commercial court led to clarify the legal principles of business partnerships and credit relations, the rights of property and more broadly the legal bases of merchants’ activities. In the context of crisis due to the Peninsular War consequences, the partners’ liability for their company’s debts was a long-lasting dispute. While the defendants claimed their limited liability or hoped for a partial debt forgiveness, the dispute urged the litigants to invoke diverse legal references, giving an insight upon the legal culture regulating merchants’ practices in the beginning of the 19th Century. Although the commercial court judges, in first instance as well as in appeal, considered the partners were victims of the misfortunes produced by to the Peninsular War and the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, they did not satisfy neither the partners’ petition for a partial debt forgiveness, nor their claims for limited liability : eventually, the judges settled the dispute according to the legal bases of the bankrupt partnership and to the creditors’ interests.

Domaines

Histoire
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-03129126 , version 1 (02-02-2021)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03129126 , version 1

Citer

Laurine Bleuenn Manac'H. Questioning Contractual and Legal Definitions of Liability in Spanish Bankruptcy Proceedings. A Catalan Business Partnership in the Aftermath of the Peninsular War. 2020. ⟨hal-03129126⟩
43 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More