Section 329 - Meaning of “external company”

(1) Sections 330 to 342 apply to external companies as defined in this section.

(2) An external company is a body corporate formed outside the Republic which, has an established place of business in the country.

(3) The expression “established place of business” means a branch, management, share, transfer, or registration office, factory, mine, or any other fixed place of business, but does not include an agency unless the agent has, and habitually exercises, a general authority to negotiate and conclude contracts on behalf of the body corporate or maintains a stock of merchandise belonging to that body corporate from which the agent regularly fills orders on behalf of the body corporate.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3),

(a) a body corporate does not have an established place of business in the Republic merely because the body corporate carries on business dealings in the Republic through a genuine broker or general commission agent acting in the ordinary course of business as a broker or general commission agent; or

(b) the fact that a body corporate has a subsidiary which is incorporated, resident, or carrying on business in the Republic, whether through an established place of business or otherwise, does not of itself constitute the place of business of that subsidiary, an established place of business of that body corporate.