By the President of the United States of America.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas an Agreement between the United States of America and the Empire of Russia to regulate the position of corporations or stock companies and other commercial associations, was concluded and signed by their respective Plenipotentiaries at St. Petersburg on the twenty-fifth/twelfth day of June, thousand nine hundred and four, the original of which Agreement, being in the French language, is word for word as follows:

[Translation.]

agreement.

The Government of the United States and the Imperial Russian Government having judged that it would be mutually useful to regulate the position of Corporations or Stock Companies and other Commercial Associations, industrial or financial, the undersigned, by virtue of the authority which has been vested in them, have agreed as follows:

1.
Corporations or Stock Companies, and other industrial or financial commercial organizations, domiciled in one of the two countries, and on the condition that they have been regularly organized in conformity to the laws in force in that country, shall be recognized as having a legal existence in the other country, and shall have therein especially the right to appear before the courts, whether for the purpose of bringing an action or of defending themselves against one.
2.
In all cases the said Corporations and Companies shall enjoy in the other country the same rights which are or may be granted to similar companies of other countries.
3.
It is understood that the foregoing stipulation or agreement has no bearing upon the question whether a Society or Corporation organized in one of the two countries will or will not be permitted to transact its business or industry in the other, this permission remaining always subject to the regulations in this respect existing in the latter country.

[Page 513]

This Agreement shall go into force on the 25/12 of June 1904, and shall only be discontinued one year after its denunciation shall have been made by one of the parties to the agreement.

Made in duplicate at St. Petersburg, the 25/12 day of June 1904.

Count Lamsdorff.
[seal]

Robert S. McCormick.
[seal]

And whereas the said Agreement, in accordance with the resolution of the Senate dated May 6, 1909, has been duly ratified with the understanding that the regulations referred to in the third paragraph in the agreement as existing in the several countries refer to and include on the part of the United States the regulations established by and under authority of the several states of the Union;

And whereas the said Agreement is in full force and effect in Russia;

Now, therefore, be it known that I, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, have caused the said Agreement to be made public, to the end that the same and every article and clause thereof may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof, subject to the said understanding.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to he hereunto fixed.


Wm H Taft

By the President:
P C Knox,
Secretary of State.