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Don’t put your company at risk: Find out if you need to qualify to do business outside your state

qualitifying to do businessA Delaware company discovered last fall that it should have qualified to do business in four other states where it had been doing business since 2000.

If the company had qualified in a timely fashion, it would have paid $2,709.27 over the course of the fifteen years it had been doing business in Texas, Illinois, Florida and Georgia. However, because of its original failure to qualify in those states, it was forced to remedy the situation retroactively and pay out substantial fees and penalties. The grand total? $34,082.07.

And it could have been worse: The company’s officers and directors could have been looking at civil penalties or even jail time had the failure to qualify happened in some other jurisdictions.

Determining whether to qualify to do business in a “foreign” state can be a complex and time-consuming task, but it needs to be done in order to avoid the harsh consequences of making the wrong decision. Qualifying to Do Business in Another State: The CSC® 50-State Guide to Qualification is a comprehensive toolbox that can help you make that determination.

This easy-to-read handbook provides you with the information you need to make the important decisions about qualifying in states where you plan to do business, and includes case studies that can help you understand which types of business activities trigger the qualification requirement.

The book begins with a look at the Model Business Corporation Act (MBCA), which serves as a template for most states’ laws governing foreign corporations’ business activities within their borders. It next examines the activities listed in the MBCA that are not subject to regulation, and then those activities that require a foreign corporation to register to business. There is also a discussion of how Internet and e-commerce activity could trigger qualification requirements.

There are detailed instructions for qualifying to do business in foreign states as well as registration procedures for charitable organizations. The appendix contains a list of qualification forms for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with forms on the companion CD-ROM.

The handbook also includes a comprehensive scope of annotated qualification statutes for all jurisdictions, giving readers easy access to the current statutes and relevant case notes that relate to doing business in a foreign state.

Two easy-to-use charts summarize the activities that do not constitute doing business and the consequences of failing to qualify. Both charts include comments and citations.

2016 Edition

Each year, the Qualification Handbook is updated with new case illustrations and important legislative changes. In this Edition, new case examples have been incorporated to further illustrate the activities that do and do not trigger qualification requirements. In addition, the chapter on Corporate Internet and Ecommerce Activity has been substantially revised to include discussion of Daimler AG v. Bauman, a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that has shaken up a century of established law on personal jurisdiction here in the U.S. Changes to qualification statutes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia have also been captured in the book’s statutory section.

The 2016 Edition of Qualifying to do Business in Another State is available as a softbound book or as an ebook, compatible with dedicated e-reader devices, computers, tablets and smartphones that use e-reader software or applications. It is also available on the LexisNexis Digital Library.


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To learn more about the 2016 Edition of Qualifying to do Business in Another State, call 1.800.533.1637 or visit us online at www.lexisnexis.com/csc.