In today's globalized legal environment, translating a shareholders' agreement is more than just a linguistic exercise. It affects your company's legal security, and can influence the outcome of a capital transaction, a dispute or a cross-border merger. You're not just translating words: you're transposing obligations, commitments and control mechanisms.
Translating a shareholders' agreement is more than just translating a contract
A shareholders' agreement contains stipulations of high legal value. Some may have a direct impact on the control of the company or the financial rights of the parties:
- Exclusion or inalienability clauses
- Anti-dilution mechanisms
- Right totag-along ordrag-along
- International arbitration or mediation clauses
When it comes to translation, every word must be considered from a legal point of view. Translating a non-competition clause into English according to an Anglo-Saxon legal system can totally change its scope.
Legal translation: why a general translator is not enough
A non-specialized translator could, for example, translate "cession sous condition suspensive" as an erroneous formulation in a common law system, where the concept of condition precedent does not have exactly the same effects. This can have serious consequences:
- Misinterpretation before a regulatory authority
- Partial document invalidation
- Longer processing times (particularly in fund-raising processes)
This risk is not theoretical. It materializes in litigation, legal audits and international transactions.
Case in point: partnership agreement for a fund-raising operation in England
A French start-up opens up its capital to a London-based fund. To secure the deal, due diligence requires an English version of the shareholders' agreement. The pre-emption clause was translated without taking into account English contractual logic, and the right of priority was deemed inapplicable in its form. As a result, the transaction was delayed by two months. A version proofread by a specialist translator would have avoided this blockage.
Our approach at Legal 230
At Legal 230, the translation of a partnership agreement is treated as an act of legal transposition, not simply a matter of putting it into words. Our translators work on the basis of :
- of multilingual legal glossaries by area of law
- contractual corpuses from both legal systems (civil law/common law)
- close collaboration with our legal reviewers for sensitive cases (litigation, arbitration proceedings, regulatory contexts)
We work with both law firms and legal departments, in the context of M&A, restructuring, litigation or international tenders.
👉 Contact Legal 230 for a rigorous legal translation tailored to your specific needs.