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A Statutory Corporation is a corporation created by statute. Their precise nature varies by jurisdiction thus they might be ordinary companies/corporations owned by a government with or without other shareholders, or they might be a body without shareholders which is controlled by national or sub-national government to the (in some cases minimal) extent provided for in the creating legislation.

Bodies described in the English language as "statutory corporations" exist in the following countries in accordance with the associated descriptions (where provided) :-

Contents 1 Australia 2 Canada 3 Germany 4 India 5 Ireland 6 Pakistan 7 New Zealand 8 United Kingdom 9 United States 10 References

In Australia, statutory corporations are created by either state or national parliaments, and are created by statute. Current statutory corporations include Australia Post, Airservices Australia, the Australian Rail Track Corporation and the Australian Egg Corporation. The purpose of their separation from normal government operations is to ensure profitability, and in theory, independence of decision making from the state or national government (to ensure that decisions are made on a commercial basis with less or no political interference.)

As statutory corporations, their regulatory and business conditions may be significantly different to private-sector companies. An example of this in Australia is the regulatory conditions placed on the national communications company Telstra.

A significant number of the statutory corporations are private commercial operations, a number of which have been privatised, in part or in whole, since the 1980s: these have included the national airline Qantas, Telstra (also previously known as Telecom Australia), and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

An example of a Statutory Corporation is a "Kassenärztliche Vereinigung", a body involved in the provision of out-patient medical services in a German state.

In the United Kingdom, a Statutory Corporation is a corporate body created by statute. It typically has no shareholders and its powers are defined by the Act of Parliament which creates it, and may be modified by later legislation. Such bodies were often created to provide public services, examples including British Railways, the National Coal Board and the Post Office Corporation. Other examples include the county councils, the National Assembly for Wales^[1] and the Olympic Delivery Authority.^[2] The phrase is not used to describe a company which operates as a conventional shareholder-owned company registered under the Companies Acts.

At the state level, municipal corporations and counties are often created by legislative acts. Some organizations such as a transit districts or special purpose corporations such as a university, are also created by statute. In some states, a city or county can be created by petition of a certain number or percentage of voters or landholders of the affected area, which then causes a municipal corporation to be chartered as a result of compliance with the appropriate law. Corporations to be established for most other purposes are usually just incorporated as any other non-profit corporation, by filing the paperwork with the appropriate agency as part of the formation of the entity.

At the Federal level, a small number of corporations are created by Congress. Prior to the District of Columbia being granted the ability to issue corporate charters in the late 1800s, corporations operating in the District required a congressional charter. With limited exceptions, most corporations created by Congress are not federally chartered, but are simply created as District of Columbia corporations as a result of the enabling law.

There are a number of federally chartered corporations that still exist, some relatively famous ones include the Boy Scouts of America, each of the Federal Reserve Banks, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The basic advantage for being federally chartered is that no other corporation anywhere in the United States is allowed to have the same name.

1. ^ Government of Wales Act 1998, Section 1
2. ^ London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006