Are you considering incorporating? Are you thinking about bringing new partners into your business? Are you considering revising your corporate structure? Do you need to update your corporation’s minute book? Are you interested in setting up a trust? Do you need to register a trademark? Do you want to sell, buy, or merge a business?
Are you a professional? Many professional associations now allow the formation of a legal entity for their members to carry out their professional activities. Your attorney can assist you with this process as well as with the procedures required by your professional association. It is important to be familiar with the various requirements set forth by each professional association’s regulations.
In all these cases, you can seek the services of your attorney. The procedures related to incorporation, drafting a shareholders’ agreement, setting up a trust, and the purchase or sale of a business all involve specific considerations that require the assistance of an organization specializing in business law.
Your attorney will assist you with the process of incorporating your business and, thereafter, will help you with financing, movable and real property, the protection of your trademarks, or in protecting your rights under a lease agreement.
Your attorney can handle updating the books for a corporation and a trust. They will draft documentation related to your company’s day-to-day operations, such as declarations of dividends, bonuses, and the issuance or redemption of shares.
As part of a reorganization of your corporate structure, it may be beneficial to establish a trust. This can offer several benefits, such as ensuring the continuity of a family business—particularly by delaying the appointment of successors—protecting the trust’s capital from economic risks (bankruptcy), litigation risks, and family disputes (divorce, separation), or providing certain tax benefits (income splitting). Your attorney, in collaboration with your tax advisor, will be able to draft this specialized documentation.
Are there multiple partners in your business? A share purchase/sale agreement among shareholders is designed to prevent potential conflicts among them by establishing mechanisms to resolve any that may arise. A tip: Sign a shareholders’ agreement as soon as the corporation is incorporated (known as “incorporation” in the federal jurisdiction), when relations among the partners are harmonious—just like at the beginning of a marriage!