Business Names Registration Act 2011

PART 1 - PRELIMINARY  

Division 2 - Definitions  

SECTION 5   ENTITIES  

5(1)    
Entity means any of the following:

(a)    an individual;

(b)    a body corporate;

(c)    a corporation sole;

(d)    a body politic;

(e)    a partnership;

(f)    any other unincorporated association or body of persons;

(g)    a trust;

(h)    a superannuation fund.

Note:

The term entity is used in a number of different but related senses. It covers all kinds of legal persons. It also covers groups of legal persons, and other things, that in practice are treated as having a separate identity in the same way as a legal person does.

5(2)    
Paragraph (1)(f) does not include a non-entity joint venture.

5(3)    
The trustee of a trust or of a superannuation fund is taken to be an entity consisting of the person who is the trustee, or the persons who are the trustees, at any given time.

Note:

This is because a right or obligation cannot be conferred or imposed on an entity that is not a legal person.

5(4)    
A legal person can have a number of different capacities in which the person does things. In each of those capacities, the person is taken to be a different entity .

Example:

In addition to his or her personal capacity, an individual may be:

(a) sole trustee of one or more trusts; and

(b) one of a number of trustees of a further trust.

In his or her personal capacity, he or she is one entity. As trustee of each trust, he or she is a different entity. The trustees of the further trust are a different entity again, of which the individual is a member.

5(5)    
If a provision refers to an entity of a particular kind, it refers to the entity in its capacity as that kind of entity, not to that entity in any other capacity.

Example:

A provision that refers to a company does not cover a company in a capacity as trustee, unless it also refers to a trustee.