论公司公章的法律功能与公司合同主体地位认定之联动

On the Legal Function of the Company’s Official Seal and the Linkage to the Identification of the Status of Contract Parties

公章的效力认定及其衍生出的公司在个案中应否作为合同主体担责的问题,属于司法实践中长期存在的“公章难题”。始终未能在理论上明晰公司公章的法律功能,也导致实践中的“公章难题”长期陷于窠臼。为破除此种困境,首先,或需纠正公章的评价标准,以有效性判断取代真实性判断,将公司授权作为公章效力的来源。其次,根据公章对合同效力的影响,可总体概括出公司公章在不同的合同签署类型中体现出的不同的法律功能。公章为公司作出书面意思表示的标志,具有确认有权代理和追认无权代理的效力,同时,在证据法的意义上,具有特别的法律推定功能。最后,根据有无签字人、签字人有权或无权与合同上有无公章、公章有效或无效相互搭配形成的不同情况,可分类探寻公司能否被认定为合同主体这一问题的答案,并可综合考量代理行为的基本架构、表见代理的认定标准以及利益与价值衡量等多方因素,构建公司公章的法律功能和公司合同主体地位认定之间的联动体系。

The confirmation of the validity of the official seal and the resulting issue of whether the company should be one of the parties of the contract in a case is the“official seal problem”in judicial practice for a long time.The legal function of the company seal has not been clarified theoretically,which also leads to that the“official seal problem”is still in the dark in practice.In order to get rid of this dilemma,firstly,it may be necessary to correct the evaluation criteria of the official seal.We may replace the authenticity judgment with the validity judgment of the official seal,and regard the company’s authorization as the source of the validity of the official seal.Secondly,according to the influence of the official seal on the effectiveness of the contract,the different legal functions of the company’s official seal under different signing types of the contract can be summarized.The official seal is a sign of the company’s written manifestation of intention,which can also be the confirmation of authorized agency or ratification of unauthorized agency.It also has a special legal presumption function in the sense of evidence law.Finally,according to the different situations formed by the mutual collocation of the rights or no rights of the contractor and the validity or invalidity of the official seal,we can explore categorially whether the company can be recognized as one of the parties of contract,and comprehensively consider the basic structure of agency behavior and identification standards of apparent agency to seek the linkage system between the legal function of the official seal and the identification of the status of the company’s contract parties by value measurement.