Hat tip to friend-of-the-BLPB Tom Rutledge for this.

On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to the East India Company, accurately described by Tom as “the granddaddy of business associations.” You can find the brief HISTORY.com accounting here. A longer article on the HISTORY.com site, authored by Dave Roos, can be found here. The first paragraph follows.

One of the biggest, most dominant corporations in history operated long before the emergence of tech giants like Apple or Google or Amazon. The English East India Company was incorporated by royal charter on December 31, 1600 and went on to act as a part-trade organization, part-nation-state and reap vast profits from overseas trade with India, China, Persia and Indonesia for more than two centuries. Its business flooded England with affordable tea, cotton textiles and spices, and richly rewarded its London investors with returns as high as 30 percent.

As I prepare to teach Business Associations again in the spring semester, it is sobering to be reminded that, even as the law of business associations continually evolves, the form and function are not new. Also, the concept that the private firm and government can serve–and has served–the same and overlapping roles in society over the years is something we should keep in mind as both business ventures and the public sector expand and contract.

Happy new year to all. I hope to see many of you in 2025, here or there.