Go-shi Gaisha is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese concept of a "unlimited liability" company, but the structure is like as the limited partnership

Limited partnership

A limited partnership is a form of partnership similar to a general partnership, except that in addition to one or more general partners , there are one or more limited partners . It is a partnership in which only one partner is required to be a general partner.The GPs are, in all major respects,...

. Unlike the other business types (yugen-gaisha and kabushiki gaisha) there is no limit on what a company is legally responsible for. Consequently, under the Japanese system this also means there is a nominal "start up fee" (shihonken) for this type of business. There is, however a stigma attached to this type of business, as it is often seen in the Japanese business world as a "second class" business not worthy of trust or credibility. As such, many policies are in place to exclude these companies from operating as usual. For example these companies can not register ".co.jp" domains as a yugen-gaisha and kabushiki gaisha can.

Structure

In a Go-shi Gaisha, partners are divided into two categories: 1) general partners who have unlimited liability similar to a partner in a general partnership and 2) limited partners who have limited liability only up to the amount he invested in the partnership (limited partner). But all partners are still directly liable to creditors of the partnership, and thus, partners can still be sued individually (direct liability).