经济与社会科学2018papers.ssrn.com
自持有公司在法律上是可能的
Self-owning corporations are legally possible
进阶 · 约 35 分钟读完前置知识：公司法基础、有限责任公司（LLC）治理结构、法律人格概念
导读
这篇论文讨论公司法是否允许“自我拥有”的公司——即公司持有自己的股份、没有外部所有者。作者的核心论证是现行商业实体法（尤其是 LLC 灵活的控制权安排）在技术上使自我拥有公司成为可能，并援引 Shawn Bayern 关于让自主算法控制 LLC、从而赋予算法法律人格的研究。不过评论者质疑论文混淆了所有权与控制权，并指出基金会、德国的 Kein-Mann GmbH 等现实中已存在自我拥有的实体。
HN 关注点：公司人格、算法能否借 LLC 获得法律人格，以及自我拥有公司在 UBO 监管下能否真正运作。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：质疑 2 补充 2
质疑论文混淆了所有权与控制权，且政府实际上有能力监管谁拥有或控制商业实体。
文章似乎有些混乱：标题讲的是所有权，摘要却根本不是关于所有权，而是关于 LLC 的控制权——在法律语境里，所有权与控制权是两回事。而且文章建立在错误前提上：所谓“政府（尤其是美国）缺乏确定谁控制其特许实体的能力”。以佛罗里达为例，该州有限责任公司法就规定了谁能担任经理（即谁控制 LLC），并像多数州一样区分成员管理型和经理管理型两类 LLC，其中一类非成员不能担任经理。在 LLC 之外，几乎所有法规都规定谁能控制、谁拥有商业实体：非营利公司没有所有者；未持执照者一般不能拥有专业服务公司、专业协会或专业 LLC（但可以担任非持照的董事、高管或经理）；未成年人通常不能当董事、高管或经理，却可以当所有者（作为唯一所有者会很棘手，因为法律上他们连合同和成立文件都签不了）。重点是：政府完全有能力监管任何类型商业实体的所有者或控制者。
will_brown查看英文原文
The article seems confused...the title references ownership and the abstract is not about ownership at all but about control of LLC’s and in a legal context ownership is distinct from control. Otherwise the article is based on a false premises: >Third, governments — particularly in the United States — lack the ability to determine who controls entities they charter Take Florida. Florida’s Limited Liability Company Act regulates who can be a manager (i.e. who controls the LLC). In fact the act creates 2 types of LLCs as most states do, member managed and manager managed. In one non-members can not be managers (control) the LLC. Outside of the LLC, almost every statute regulates who can control and who can own a business entity. For example, a non-profit corporation has no owners. Although states do differ, generally by statute, a non licensed person cannot be the owner of a professional service corporation, professional association, or professional limited liability company. Though generally those professional entities can have non-licensed directors, officers, or managers. State laws also generally include restriction on minors being directors, officers or managers, but they can usually be owners, although it gets tricky where they are the sole owner because legally they can’t even sign contracts/formation documentation (though still legally possible). Point is Governments are well equipped to regulate who can own or who can control any type of business entity. What is possible, and I have written legal articles about, is to have autonomous trusts, or what I call the trusteeless trust but my examples and use cases are limited to the trust being funded solely with cryptocurrencies/tokens.
补充自我拥有公司在现实中已存在，如基金会和德国的 Kein-Mann GmbH。
嗯，基金会基本上就是一家由既定目标引导、往往比创始人活得久的自我拥有公司。此外还有几种其他法律形式允许公司拥有自己。例如在德国有“Kein-Mann GmbH”（无人 GmbH）的概念，即一家持有自己 100% 股份的有限责任公司。
ThePhysicist查看英文原文
Well, a foundation is basically a self-owning company that is steered by its stated goal and often outlives its creators. In addition, there are several other legal forms that allow companies to own themselves. For example, in Germany there's the concept of a "Kein-Mann GmbH" (no man's GmbH), which is a limited liability company that owns 100 % of its own shares.
补充引述 Bayern 的研究：让算法控制 LLC 即可赋予算法法律人格，且算法可再赋予其他算法同等权利。
Shawn Bayern 教授在最近两篇文章中证明，任何人只要让一个自主计算机算法控制一家 LLC，就能赋予该算法法律人格；算法可以行使实体的权利，使这些权利实际上成为算法的权利。这种“算法实体”（AE）的权利包括隐私权、拥有财产权、签订合同权、由律师代理权、免于无理搜查和扣押权、法律的平等保护权、言论自由权，甚至可能包括在政治竞选上花钱的权利。Bayern 还观察到，一旦算法拥有这些权利，它也有权通过组建更多实体并让其他算法控制它们，来赋予其他算法同等权利。
nabla9查看英文原文
>In two recent articles, Professor Shawn Bayern demonstrated that anyone can confer legal personhood on an autonomous computer algorithm merely by putting it in control of a limited liability company (LLC). 10 The algorithm can exercise the rights of the entity, making them effectively rights of the algorithm. >The rights of such an algorithmic entity (AE) would include the rights to privacy, 11 to own property, to enter into contracts, to be represented by counsel, to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, 12 to equal protection of the laws, 13 to speak freely, and perhaps even to spend money on political campaigns. 14 Once an algorithm had such rights, Bayern observed, it would also have the power to confer equivalent rights on other algorithms by form- ing additional entities and putting those algorithms in control of them. 15 --- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2758222 Shawn Bayern, The Implications of Modern Business Entity Law for the Regulation of Autonomous Systems, 19 S TAN . T ECH . L. R EV . 93 (2015) [hereinafter Bayern, Entity Law]; Shawn Bayern, Of Bitcoins, Independently Wealthy Software, and the Zero-Member LLC, 108 N W . U. L. R EV . 1485 (2014) [hereinafter Bayern, Wealthy Software]. >Abstract >Nonhuman autonomous systems are not legal persons under current law. The history of organizational law, however, demonstrates that agreements can, with increasing degrees of autonomy, direct the actions of legal persons. Agreements are isomorphic with algorithms; that is, a legally enforceable agreement can give legal effect to the arbitrary discernible states of an algorithm or other process. As a result, autonomous systems may end up being able, at least, to emulate many of the private-law rights of legal persons. This essay demonstrates a technique by which this is possible by means of limited liability companies (LLCs), a very flexible modern type of business organizations. The techniques that this essay describes are not just futuristic possibilities; as this essay argues, they are already possible under current law.
质疑UBO 规则会让自我拥有公司难以实际开展业务，也戳穿了公司人格的神话。
大多数国家都有“最终受益所有人”（UBO）的概念。没有 UBO 声明，银行不会与你打交道，许多商业交易无法进行，你很快就会被踢出局。所以即便自我拥有公司在法律上可能，这类公司要实际开展业务也可能非常困难。有意思的是，这一切——至少目前——戳穿了公司人格的神话：如果公司真的是一个人，这显然不会成为问题，因为对人来说，所有权是件可怕的事（那叫奴隶制）。
jacquesm查看英文原文
Most countries have a concept known as Ultimate Beneficial Owner or UBO for short. Without a UBO declaration banks will not deal with you, lots of business transactions will not be possible and you will find yourself dealt out of the game pretty quickly. So even if self owning corporations are legally possible it may very well be hard for those self owning corporations to transact any business. What is interesting is that all this - for now - puts the lie to the myth of corporate personhood. If a corporation really was a person this would obviously not be an issue because for people we find that ownership is a terrible thing (it's called slavery).
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