Maritime Partnerships
Description
Ed Mayo:
"From the late eighth century, a range of partnership models for enterprise and trade emerged in the Islamic world, allowing people to co-invest and share returns on an agreed basis, to share losses including acting as surety for other partners and to act on a mutual basis across the partners (Udovitch, 1970). The term typically used, Sharikah, or al-Shirkah, means in effect a sharing, co-partnership. The most comprehensive form, Sharikat al Mufawadah, offered members equal rights in economic terms and an equal say in terms of the ability to act on behalf of the partnership. As one commentator, Abraham Udovitch argues, some of the institutions, practices and concepts in Islamic legal sources of the late eighth century did not emerge in Europe until several centuries later (Udovitch, 1970).
Early West European companies, such as the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France formed in 1627 to pursue trade in furs with North America, also operated on the basis of one member, one vote (Marianopolis College, 2005). The regulated companies set up by merchants in England in the 15th century followed the one member, one vote rule and, according to Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, also operated an open-door principle, where firms were obliged to admit any person, properly qualified, upon paying a certain fine (Battilani, 2014)."