Legal

  • Legal Primer for the Formation of Consumer-Owned Food Cooperatives – Joel Dahlgren
    • http://www.foodcoopinitiative.coop/sites/default/files/LegalPrimer.pdf
      • This legal primer is designed to provide community groups with a basic resource for understanding the legal issues involved in starting a food co-op. Cooperative Development Services has created a development model—“Four Cornerstones in Three Stages” – to help people work through the steps of organizing a successful food cooperative. The steps referred to in this legal primer relate to the Organizing Stage of the model. However, reference is also made to various legal and financial tasks that will come into play in the Implementation Stage and beyond. Within the four cornerstones of co-op development—Vision, Talent, Capital and Systems – this legal primer focuses on the development of legal systems. Due to the crossover between legal structure and financial issues in a business, considerable time is also devoted to discussions of capitalization and taxes.
      • Library ID Number: 7650
  • Understanding the Capper-Volstead Act
    • http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/cir35.pdf
      • Details of two key provisions of the Capper-Volstead Act enacted by Congress in 1922 are examined. This important law gives agricultural producers the right to collectively market their products in interstate and foreign commerce. In the absence of such enabling legislation, producers could be subject to an antitrust action. It also protects the consumer against undue price enhancement resulting from any monopoly position that a group of producers could legally achieve by working together. The publication includes a reprint of the original 1922 law.
      • CIR 35. 9 pgs. Reprinted 1995. David Volkin.
      • Library ID Number: 2835
  • Section 9; Legal Foundations of a Cooperative, Donald A. Frederick
    • http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/CIR45-9.pdf
      • This article describes the steps cooperatives must follow when incorporating. It also examined are the various organizational documents needed by cooperatives, including articles of incorporation, bylaws, policies, marketing agreements, and membership agreements. Lastly, it discusses what a director handbook should include.
      • Library ID Number: 4027
  • Cooperative Marketing Agreements – Legal Aspects
    • http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/rr106.pdf
      • This report focuses on the legal characteristics of cooperative marketing agreements. The basic legal principles governing marketing contracts are first reviewed. The integral parts that make up a marketing agreement are then examined in detail. Examples of common provisions used in marketing agreements appear throughout the report for purposes of illustration.
      • Library ID Number: 2909
  • Sample Legal Documents for Cooperatives
    • http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/cir40.pdf
      • This report explains the rationale for the primary legal documents required to establish and operate a cooperative. It discusses each issue usually covered in each document and presents options that organizers and leaders might consider in drafting and reviewing the documents. It also provides sample language for use as a model in drafting new and updating existing cooperative legal documents.
      • CIR 40, May 1990, Donald A Frederick
      • Library ID Number: 2720
  • Legal Manual for Small Rural Home Cooperatives
    • https://community-wealth.org/content/legal-manual-small-rural-home-cooperatives
      • This manual is designed to help people in rural Wisconsin develop housing cooperatives composed of a small number of adjacent single family homes specifically designed for senior citizens. This manual refers to and is based on a cooperative housing development that took place in Adams-Friendship, Wisconsin. The Manual is designed to help others “jump start” their own development process.
      • University of Wisconsin – Anne Reynolds, Char Thompson
      • Library ID Number: 7656
  • Managing Cooperative Antitrust Risk
    • http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/cir38.pdf
      • This article discusses the essentials of antitrust law. It explains why limited antitrust protection granted in the Capper-Volstead Act is critical to cooperative marketing by agricultural producers. It also outlines who is covered by Capper-Volstead, how a cooperative must be organized to qualify for limited antitrust protection, and what types of activity by the cooperative are protected.
      • CIR 38. 33 pgs. 1989. Donald A. Frederick.
      • Library ID Number: 2344
  • Guidelines for Cooperative Bylaws – University of Wisconsin