--- 117 ---It was legally formed in a foreign kingdom to which the Sublime Porte granted the right to enjoy these privileges.

The victors in the Mixed Court's ruling claim that mere registration of a company in England grants it English nationality. However, they argue that the issue is whether the registration of companies in England obliges the Mixed Egyptian Courts to consider them valid companies or not, if a dispute arises between an English company of this type and some Egyptians or non-English foreigners. The Mixed Courts had jurisdiction to decide this according to the Mixed Egyptian Law. Then, if the issue, as they said, is one of personal status, the opinion is clear. However, there is no evidence for this, nor is there any room to consider joint-stock companies as legal persons with personal status like individuals. But this legal personality in companies exists entirely or mostly through contract, and the validity of the contract that caused its existence depends on observing the provisions of Egyptian law if these companies are Egyptian in reality, and on observing the provisions of the laws of their countries if they are foreign.

In any case, it is established that these matters, in the view of the Egyptian legislator, are matters of contracts and have nothing to do with personal status. This made the provisions concerning national commercial companies in the National Commercial Law fall under the jurisdiction of the national courts according to civil laws, and it did not make them the responsibility of the Sharia court judges, i.e., personal status judges.

As for the argument of the first party regarding privileges, no one disputes that foreign companies formed according to the laws under which they should be formed are valid companies, recognized in their existence, and have the right to enjoy what is granted to them in this regard in Egypt. However, the dispute is limited to knowing what constitutes a foreign company in the view of the Egyptian legislator, and whether it is sufficient for its founders to dress it in a foreign guise to exempt it from the jurisdiction of local courts. There is no dispute that the Mixed Courts are the only courts that currently have the right to rule on a commercial company as Egyptian or foreign if the lawsuit brought before them involves the rights of individuals of different nationalities. In reality, all joint-stock companies currently formed in Egypt involve such rights. If the Mixed Courts have jurisdiction over the issue of nationality, it is difficult, it seems, not to have the right to rule that a company is null and void if it becomes clear that it is Egyptian for the purpose. Foreign companies are not exempt from the provisions of Egyptian laws.