The cooperative economic groups and the problem of the quantification of the social economy entities

Abstract

The Portuguese Cooperative Code allows cooperatives to set up commercial companies, subsidiaries, and acquire shares in the capital of commercial companies, provided this does not affect the autonomy of the cooperative. If through these group strategies, the cooperative aims to meet the needs of its members, we will be facing on the concept of ‘indirect mutuality’, a concept expressly admitted by the doctrine and the rules of certain jurisdictions. In these cases, the Social Economy Satellite Account should consider these commercial companies owned or participated by cooperatives as entities of the social economy. Therefore, a case-by-case analysis will be carried out to distinguish situations of indirect mutuality from situations of companization of the cooperative phenomenon.