Amalgamation

A term applied In England to the merger or consolidation of two incorporated companies or societies. In the case of the Empire Assurance Corporation. (1867,) L. It. 4 Eq. 347, the vice-chancellor snid: "It is difficult to say what the word 'amalgamate' means. I confess at this moment I have not the least conception of what the full legal effect of the word is. We do not find it in any law dictionary, or expounded by any competent authority. But I am quite sure of this: that the word 'amalgamate' cannot mean that the execution of a deed shall make a man a partner in a firm in which he was not a partner before, under conditions of which he is in no way cognizant, and which are not the same as those contained in the former deed." But in Adams v. Yazoo & M. V. R. Co., 77 Miss. 194, 24 South. 200, 211, 60 L. R. A. 33, it is said that the term "amalgamation" of corporations is used in the English cases in the sense of what is usually known in the United States as "merger," meaning the absorption of one corporation by another, so that it is the absorbing corporation which continues in existence; and it differs from "consolidation," the meaning of which is limited to such a union of two or more corporations as necessarily results in the creation of a third new corporation.