Template:Capacity capsule

Whether your counterparty is even constitutionally capable of entering into obligations of the type contemplated by your contract, is a question of its capacity (as to which see also ultra vires). In this day and age, capacity — once a rich source of legal paranoia — is largely a dead letter among commercial enterprises in sensible jurisdictions, but it is still a banana skin for municipal bodies and local governments. Even thirty years on, the words “Orange County” or “Hammersmith and Fulham council” will be enough to get buttocks clenching in your risk department.