Argentina (AR) — civil law.
Nothing on this page describes United States practice. There is no certificate sold to an investor, no administrative sale of land for unpaid tax, and no redemption window after a
subasta judicialin Argentina. If you arrived carrying US assumptions, read falsos-amigos first.
Acciones y cuotas sociales
A share is an asset of the shareholder, not of the company. When a court sells
acciones of a sociedad anónima or cuotas of a sociedad de responsabilidad limitada (SRL), the buyer steps into the partner’s position. The company’s own
assets and debts stay where they were, because “la sociedad es un sujeto de derecho”
(LGS art. 2)
and “la persona jurídica tiene una personalidad distinta de la de sus miembros”
(CCyC art. 143).
That is the opposite of buying a business out of a quiebra, where the buyer takes
assets and leaves the liabilities behind (see empresas-y-fondos-de-comercio).
Buy the shares and every liability of the company comes with them, at the price of
your stake. The legal hook for the sale is LGS art. 57. A partner’s creditors cannot
force the sale of a parte de interés in a partnership-type company. But in SRLs and
companies with shares “se pueden hacer vender las cuotas o acciones de propiedad del
deudor, con sujeción a las modalidades estipuladas”. Those modalidades are the trap.
An SRL contract may limit but never prohibit transfers (art. 153). On a forced sale of
restricted cuotas, the court must notify the company at least 15 days before the
auction. The judge then will not award the cuotas if within 10 days the company
presents a buyer, or the company or the partners exercise their option at the same
price and deposit it (art. 153). The winning bidder can be displaced at the very end.
Two more facts drive value. Registration decides when you own the stake against the
world: cuotas count against third parties from entry in the Registro Público
(art. 152), and nominative shares count from entry in the company’s share register
(art. 215). And the buyer of cuotas guarantees unpaid contributions jointly with the
seller (art. 150).
Read the rest with a free account
The opening section is open to everyone. The procedure in detail — statutes, deadlines, who may bid, and what the record does not say — is behind a free account.
We ask for one because writing these from primary sources is slow work, and knowing who relies on it tells us which country to do next.
Create a free account Sign in