Limited liability Imperial Charter

A Limited Liability Imperial Charter, abbreviated LIC, is an Imperially granted charter allowing a company or corporation to engage in interstellar commerce.

• Some also refer to it as Limited liability Imperial Charter among other variants.

Description (Specifications)

Applications to receive an Imperial charter are handled by the Ministry of Commerce. The Ministry scrutinizes each one to ensure that the applicants are reputable people who can be trusted to behave honorably even in the absence of supervision. A charter is subject to periodic renewal, and this is an opportunity for the Ministry to review the company's past behavior, force it to change practices that have generated complaints, and inspect the books.

There is no fee for receiving an Imperial charter, but a 2.0% share of the company must be given to the Emperor, who will usually assign their control to a local noble.

Definition Note

The abbreviation 'LIC' has had multiple interpretations over time including:

• Limited Imperial Corporation
• Limited Imperial Company
• Licensed Imperial Company

However, the actual definition of LIC is Limited liability Imperial Charter.

This fallacy even crops up in official publications on occasion.

History & Background (Dossier)

Except for a few corporations pre-dating the Imperium (e.g. Achenaar Antilles Line, GSbAG, Kirgaasanakka Publishing, Ling-Standard Products, Makhidkarun, Naasirka, Sharurshid, Zirunkariish), all corporations engaging in interstellar commerce are required to possess such a charter. This is indicated by the letters LIC following the company name.

The idea of business charters is not common to all sophontic species, and many of the major and minor races do not possess a similar cultural institution.

Selected Other Business Charter Types

• AG (Aktiengesellschaft)
• BV (Besloten Venootschaap)
• GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung)
• Inc. (Incorporated)
• LLC (Limited Liability Company)
• Ltd. (Limited Liability)
• PLC (Public Limited Company)
• SA (Société Anonyme)
• SC (Service Corporation)
• SIA (S'mrii Incorporated Association)
• SPRL (Société Privée à Responsabilité Limitée)
• SRO (Spolecnost S Rucenim Omezenim)
• TOO (Tovarichestvo c Ogrannichnuu Otvetstvenuu)
• ULIC (Unlimited Liability Imperial Charter)

References & Contributors (Sources)

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• John Harshman, Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman. Library Data (A-M) (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 40.
• Martin Dougherty. Behind the Claw (Mongoose Publishing, 2019), TBD.Martin Dougherty, Neil Frier. Behind the Claw (Steve Jackson Games, 1998), TBD.
• Steve Daniels, Jim McLean, Christopher Thrash. Far Trader (Steve Jackson Games, 1999), TBD.
• Paul Drye, Loren Wiseman, Jon F. Zeigler. Interstellar Wars (Steve Jackson Games, 2006), TBD.
• Marc Miller. T5 Core Rules (Far Future Enterprises, 2013), TBD.
• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science