REGULATIONS REGARDING REGISTRATION OF COMPANY NAMES AND BUSINESS ITEMS REVISED

09/01/1999

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On 7 July 1999, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) announced revisions to the Guidelines of the Reservation Standards for Company Names and Businesses. The principle points of the revision are as follows:

For a foreign company, the applicant must be its designated litigious or non-litigious representative in the ROC or the general manager of the branch to be established.

The time limit for reservation was extended from two months to three months with a one month extension possible upon application. However, the MOEA still maintains a longer time limit of six months for FIA companies.

Company names may not use four or more repeated Chinese characters or two more repeated Chinese terms.

To accommodate the computerized registration of the recognized business items of companies, the registration form with the required computer code number and business classifications during the reservation process is required. Therefore, the determination of different business classifications should be based on the following principles:

Different computer codes should be regarded as different business classifications; provided that registration of the wholesale and retail businesses of the same goods should be regarded as the same business classification.

Classifications of "other businesses" with the same computer code should be regarded as different business classifications if the products or service stated in such business classifications are different.