In union there was strength: The legal protection of eighteenth-century merchant partnerships in England and France
Résumé
Merchant networks and solidarity in the early modern era were both an economic protection, ensuring the product quality, credit availability, and liquid means of payment, and an economic weapon, allowing for control of segmented markets and exclusion of potential competitors. This key role of the merchant collective found a direct translation, and important reinforcement, in the legal sphere both in England and in France, where courts made sure to give pride of place to the group decisions of partners over considerations of individual rights. Regardless of local legal traditions, courts enforced merchant unity, especially in matters relating to liability; the law, market ethics, and merchant strategies were thus facets of the same unified pattern.