[dragonwriter]

> A company is a legal vehicle

No, a company is any business organization. Corporations, partnerships, LLCs, etc., are particular legal vehicles, each of which is a kind of company. But a company need not have a particular legal vehicle.

[wpietri]

Do you have a reference for that? I have never heard of a company that wasn't some specific legal vehicle. Wikipedia defines it specifically as a legal entity. It's not clear to me what a "business organization" means if it's not defined under law, in that it would otherwise seem to be a bunch of individuals coordinating their activities, not a formal entity in its own right.

[dragonwriter]

> Do you have a reference for that?

Google's dictionary in search defines it as “a commercial business”, dictionary.com defines it as “a number of persons united or incorporated for joint action, especially for business”;

Wiktionary has both a business definition “Any business, whether incorporated or not, that manufactures or sells products (also known as goods), or provides services as a commercial venture” and a law definition “An entity having legal personality, and thus able to own property and to sue and be sued in its own name; a corporation.”

FindLaw’s law dictionary gives “an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise”

> It's not clear to me what a "business organization" means if it's not defined under law

It's a vague, broad category; the law mostly concerns itself with more specific categories.

[wpietri]

I agree what you're saying could be seen to fit inside some formal definition, although I'd see that as more a lacuna in a definition than proof.

Do you have examples of things that are talked about as companies that are not also legal entities? I have been reading the business press for decades, and I don't recall ever seeing it.

[dragonwriter]

> Do you have examples of things that are talked about as companies that are not also legal entities?

Sole proprietorships are not legal entity. (Their owner is a “legal entity”, but the business itself is not separately.)

Partnerships were not generally legal entities in the US prior to states adopting 1997 revisions to the Uniform Partnership Act model law (only 37 of 49 states who adopted the original law, apparently, have adopted the 1997 revision); I'm not sure if any of the states that don't use the 1997 RUPA still don't make partnerships legal entities.

[wpietri]

Ok. When I mean examples, I mean specific examples. Do you have, e.g., examples of a sole proprietorship being discussed as a company?