談美國社會企業立法——以公益公司為中心

Social Enterprise Legislation in the United States: Focusing on Benefit Corporation

社會企業（Social Enterprise）為採取商業手段（通常指從事營利行為）以達成社會或環境任務之組織或事業。社會企業近年為相當熱門之議題，不論實務與學術皆有豐富討論，甚至在美國造成各州一連串的立法活動。亦即，藉由法律創設新形態之組織以回應社會企業發展之法制需求。本文擬以近期美國社會企業立法為題，就立法原因、法規內容與可能缺失等面向加以討論與分析。在各種類型中，以公益公司（Benefit Corporation）最為重要，因此為本文討論之中心。又觀察此波立法活動似能給我國法制提供反思機會，尤其在當今強調企業社會責任之同時，若能從法制上支持社會企業之發展，似能抒解政府與市場失靈問題，不失為值得參考之方向。雖本文認為依我國現有條件未能支持特別立法之必要，惟一旦將來相關條件成熟，應即審慎評估特別立法之可行性，而美國的立法經驗與執行成效即得為我國之重要參考範本。

Social Enterprise means an organization or venture formed to achieve social goals such as societal or environmental missions by using business methods (usually running for-profit business). The concept of Social Enterprise recently has been hotly debated in practice and academia, and such a concept has motivated a series of legislation in U.S., which creates new statutory forms in response to legal needs of development of Social Enterprise. This Article will study and analyze issues relating to the social enterprise legislation in U.S., including rationales, contents, and potential weaknesses of such legislation. Of all types of new statutory forms, Benefit Corporation is most important, and this form will be the primary target analyzed in this Article. The legislation in U.S. may provide some implications to Taiwan law which does not design special forms for Social Enterprise. Notwithstanding Social Enterprise could alleviate governmental and market failures to some degree, Taiwan currently has no reasons to create new statutory forms like U.S. However, this Article suggests that the U.S. legislation be a good model if certain conditions are met and Taiwan is thinking of introducing Social Enterprise legislation in the future.