The modern day world is one of specialized entities in every aspect of life. Even the constitution of each and every nation underlines special areas and circumstances and in the process defines specialized laws to govern the functioning of those sectors and areas. Hence, the idea of the corporate law, even if it may be comparatively unfamiliar in the daily life of a common man, would not be altogether an alien one on the concept level. Also often referred to as company or corporations law, corporate law can be defined as the set of authorized rules governing the functioning of the most prevalent type of the current business enterprises. Various entities such as the stakeholders, creditors, board of directors as well as the consumers, the community, etc fall under the jurisdiction of corporate laws.

Corporate law belongs to the broader umbrella category of companies law which have a separate and uniquely distinct legal personality altogether. In other words, corporate law involves large scale businesses with limited or unlimited liability intended for its members or stakeholders, who are entitled to buy and sell their shares according to the board of directors and their consistency of performance. Generally corporate laws associate themselves with organizations which have official registration under the constitution of a sovereign nation state. However, all these often lead to a basic confusion regarding the very idea of a corporation which is identified by five essentially defining characteristics of an organization. These are separate legal identity, limited liability of the stockholders, existence of transferable shares, and delegation of the management staff and finally the concept of investor ownership.

As with every other notion, even the origin of corporate law or even the concept of corporate as a legally distinct and unique financial entity, is a highly debatable issue with a number of varying and diverse views, opinions and arguments. It is mostly said that in the ancient Greco Roman civilizations, there existed a certain set of entities which can be definitely compared with the idea of a company. However, the modern idea of corporate as we now know it is said to have emerged from an ancestry that dates back to the Second millennium. With the establishments of guilds in the medieval period, which had a set of well defined rules to be abided by the members of the guild, surfaced the notion of both the modern corporate as well as corporate laws. It was however England and Holland during the era of expanding their international trade relations via sea routes, who developed and expanded the forms of corporate organizations and the organizational laws. Through out the 18th and the 19th Century there have been a chain of debates, arguments and resultant developments in this area. The final one in this regard was the verdict passed by the House of Lords confirming the separate legal personality of the company in the celebrated Salomon v. Salomon & Co. case further stating that the liabilities of the organization were separate from its owners.