Which is correct?

[Unregistered]

If I am refering to a company (name Kemlok), which is correct.

Kemlok agree to this contract or
Kemlok agrees to this contract.

( should the comapny be referred to in singular or plural? )

 

[David L.]

Kemlok agree to this contract.

 

[Grablevskij]

Kemlok agree to this contract.

Why? Never knew. It is very interesting. Could you speculate on this subject and maybe give us some websites to see.

Michael

 

[Grablevskij]

You know, I suppose both variants are correct.
For example, I checked with British National Corpus:

SunSelect has repeatedly maintained that Microsoft doesn't have a legal leg to stand on and that it will not pay the licence.

Microsoft have already moved strongly to meet the new generation of MS-DOS multimedia computers which is about to emerge.

So the question is what is more common and appropriate fot business English.

Michael

 

[David L.]

The name of a company can't agree to anything. It would be like getting my birth certificate to sign legal documents for me because my wrist is sprained!
What is actually being said is something like, "The Board of Directors of Kemlok agree..." The members of the Board of Directors may change, but the company continues. In contracts, this is circumvented, and abbreviated from something like "The current Board of Directors, on behalf of and in the interests of the Kemlok Company, hereby agree...", to just the company name. The plural verb maintains the idea that it is not a name, not a building, but those people responsible for the management and operation of the company at that time, that they are doing the 'agreeing'.

 

[Grablevskij]

How about this:
The board of directors of the Seller has adopted a plan of
(Sample Contracts - Asset Purchase Agreement - 3dfx Interactive Inc. and NVIDIA Corp. - Competitive Intelligence for Investors)

So, I suppose both variants are Ok. IMHO, of course.

Michael

 

[David L.]

Did you note the clause:
Throughout this Agreement, whenever required by the context, the singular includes the plural and vice versa and any gender includes any other gender.
This circumvents the whole problem. Now, legally, they can say, 3M agrees..(singular)

 

[happyteen]

If I am refering to a company (name Kemlok), which is correct.

Kemlok agree to this contract or
Kemlok agrees to this contract.

( should the comapny be referred to in singular or plural? )

I think that we should use "singular verb".You can regard "Kemlok" as a whole .

 

[Grablevskij]

I gave you the site. I have just been trying to find plurals on it and did not found any. In all the cases they used singular. Maybe you will be more lucky? Or this is not a very good site. Could you show us an example of a contract or two?

Michael

 

[happyteen]

I gave you the site. I have just been trying to find plurals on it and did not found any. In all the cases they used singular. Maybe you will be more lucky? Or this is not a very good site. Could you show us an example of a contract or two?

Michael

I don't know the bold word in the sentence :I gave you the site.
Do you mean you have agreed with Mr L.

 

[louhevly]

If I am refering to a company (name Kemlok), which is correct.

Kemlok agree to this contract or
Kemlok agrees to this contract.

( should the comapny be referred to in singular or plural? )

In AmE, "Kemlok agrees to this contract". If you search for similar examples on Google, such as "Microsoft agrees" (62.700) and "Microsoft agree" (13,200), you'll find that in the "Microsoft agree" cases, the subject is generally compound:

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Agree on Sitemap Specs
Novell and Microsoft Agree to Sell Each Others Products

 

[Grablevskij]

Ok, maybe this time I will be more clear. This is the site:
Sample Contracts and Business Forms - Competitive Intelligence for Investors
There are a lot of sample contracts there. I looked through some but didn't find any companies that agree with plural verbs. But as I said earlier, for me both variants are Ok.
We can say a team, or a crew decide... Just collective nouns, so both versions are fine. My modest opinion, maybe I'm not right.

Michael