Savary and the Napoleonic Commercial Code

Savary Commercial Code

Jacques Savary (1622 - 1690)

Savary belongs to a French family dedicated to trade and publication of works related to commercial matters.

He has broad involvement and experience in and out of royal service.

He was known as the chief architect of the Commercial Code of France in 1673 otherwise called Code of Savary.

Code of Savary generally uses historical cost as the basis of valuation.

Savary published his book, The Perfect Merchant, which contains thousands of pages describing accounting in Chapters 4 to 10 of Book Four.

Napoleonic Commercial Code

Napoleon Bonaparte's codification of France's Civil Law, namely the "Code of Napoleon" was imposed on March 21, 1804.

In 1807 (three years after the enforcement of the code), the "Code de Commerce" was passed to supplement the Code of Napoleon.

Code de Commerce regulated commercial transactions, laws of business, bankruptcies, and the jurisdictions of the courts and procedures dealing with these subjects.

Though the Code of Commerce does not provide valuation rules, it gives in notes and example of inventory where it described that the assets must be carried at their market value on the day inventory and not on the basis of historical cost.