COMPANY LAW AND JOINT STOCK COMPANIES FOR INSURANCE/REINSURANCE

Specialized companies that perform activities typically requiring estab lishment permits and operational permits from competent bodies are most often regulated summarily, by special laws. This is also the case with insurance companies in general, and particularly with joint-stock insurance companies. This technique of regulation is primarily applied because, in all countries, including Serbia, there is a general law that regulates all companies. This general law is applied either “accord ingly” or directly to specialized companies, including insurance companies, and thus to joint-stock insurance companies for issues and institutes for which there are no specifi c provisions in the specialized law, i.e. the insurance law. This paper discusses the relationship between the law regulating com panies and the law regulating insurance, with a particular emphasis on joint-stock insurance companies. The relationship in question is between the general law (the Company Law) and the special law (the Insurance Law), which is governed by the maxim lex specialis derogat lege generali (special law repeals the general law). It is interesting that the Insurance Law, between the two options of that application, “according application” and direct application, opted for the direct application of the Company Law when it does not contain specifi c provisions based on the specifi city of the insurance activity as compared to other activities covered by the regulatory framework of the Company Law. The paper specifi cally analyzes issues related to the status of joint-stock companies and their bodies (corporate governance) for which there are no special provisions in the law regulating insurance, and to which the law regulating companies cannot be directly applied; instead, it would be necessary to resort to a rule closer to the nature of “according application”

Keywords: insurance companies, joint-stock insurance companies, corporate governance models, capital adequacy, groups of insurance companies.