It stands for "Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung," which loosely means what "Limited Liability Company" means in the US. But it works quite differently: when you start a GmbH company, you put an amount of money into the bank -- 25,000 Euros. That money is frozen there. If the company goes bankrupt, that money is used to fund losses, pay off debts, etc, thus limiting liabilities. It's a business model for smaller companies...once you exceed a certain amount of sales, you are required to switch to a different business model.
That has always bugged me. Thanks go to dus from EfNet's #PCE for explaining it.
Posted by das at August 12, 2004 05:05 PM | TrackBack