摘要：It is in principle an autonomous decision of every person which activities to pursue and in what legal forms. However, in some cases the law prescribes that particular activities may be pursued only in a special form. That relates especially to those activities which are considered of special importance to the society (e.g. education, health services, social care services, cultural activities etc.). The Croatian legal system provides for various forms of legal persons in which an activity may be pursued, but the most important are company and institute. The paper examines the current regulation on links between the type of the activity and legal form in which that activity may or must be pursued and which are the consequences thereto. Those notably refer to the notion of merchant and commercial contract, since they are the key elements in establishing which rules shall apply to the contract involving the legal person, in this case the company and the institute. Generally speaking, it may be stated that the analysis of various general and special laws regulating particular activities shows that there are no general principles on which the current regulation of those activities is based. To the contrary, one may conclude that it is partly a consequence of the non-coordinated legislative process and partly a result of the lack of clear standpoint on which goals are to be achieved in that regulation. The author advocates a thorough reconsideration of the existing legal persons and activities which they may pursue, and consequently proposes the introduction of new rules that would reflect the business reality and market relations more precisely.
关键词：activity; business activity; profit; legal form; legal person; company; association; institute; public institute; public service; merchant; commercial contract
