Do French companies have a “legal name” consisting of a unique identifier plus one or more terms indicating which kind of company are they? Well, that depends on which translator you ask and on what dialect of English/legal system they are translating into. There are cases where French companies are required to use such a combination of identifiers; what is it called is actually irrelevant.
Independently of the above, are French companies required to put the identifier of their type of corporation in every form of communication? The answer to this is no.
How do I find out what type of company these guys are? Email. Seriously. And if I were you, I’d also ask for their numéro TVA or code ROI. It’s the same thing: their intracommunitary tax ID, which will eventually have to be in any invoices or contracts between you. While you are not in the EU, it would be very strange for a French company to be doing business both in France and outside the EU, while not being registered to do business with other EU countries. Providing it is a basic “good faith” proof, and once you have it you can look up information on them in contexts in which a trade name or even what you’re calling their legal name would not necessarily be useful. You can use this page to verify that it’s a valid number, which may seem like a silly thing to have to do but, having returned contracts because the lawyer had misspelled the name of his employer, I do check it.
In fact the question is simple, and does not need a restatement which is in fact not correct. The questin is If the French law requires the identification of the company form in the legal naming - for the purposes of the legal contracting or similar (not for simple marketing). I believe the terms must be found in the law on commercial companies, the*** Loi n°66-537 du 24 juillet 1966, dernière modification : 1 janvier 2003. ***
I have not the time to look at the French code, but I can note that in my jurisdictions, which are all following the French law model and the text on the SaRL, the SAS, the SA, etc. are inspired or even copied from the French model the answer is yes. Even a change from the SàRL AU (one company owner of the SaRL [associé unique]) to the SàRL [ordinary with more than one owner] must be signaled in the modification of the mandatory company stamps and in all documents of a contracting nature, etc.
I would believe that yes, modern company law in France should be requiring as the OHADA and the maghrébine model codes that are inspired from it require this, where my company name for contracting must always signal the real and current legal form. This is not for all communications, only for the juridical communications or having such a value.
The law generally recognizes - even has specific provisions for, AFAIK - errors not intended to misrepresent or defraud. I assume it would fall under those.
If Hubert etc. etc. Farnhamshireworth tried to execute a contract as the person of J.B. Fronk, it could be considered fraud. Not so if the clerk mistyped his name on the contract.
Nava, I appreciate your input but you’ve got it all wrong. A company may have many names it “does business as”, but it can only have one legal name that is registered when it becomes a legal entity. The answer to my question does not differ depending on what document I’m looking at. It’s either yes or no.
Ramira gets it. Thank you for this.
I’ve seen executive’s names misspelled, (mostly with those that normally don’t use Roman letters to spell), but I’ve never seen a company name misspelled. Two separate legal departments going over the document works as a good double check. But even in the infinitessimally small chance that it does go through misspelled, it does not mean it is automatically void and null. There will be other information that will sufficiently identify the party in question, such as their place of business, the business they are in, key executives, etc. And although IANAL, the misspell should be such that the company name can be reasonably recognized. You can’t misspell Cisco Systems as Coca-Cola:p