O.C.G.A.

43-10A-21 (2019)

Restrictions on use of terms in corporate, partnership, association, or business names

✓ O.C.G.A. (archive.org 2024 item): print volumes of 2004-2024, per-volume vintage; older volumes partly replaced by 2019 Release 73 text; no 2025 or 2026 Acts
Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.
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(a) No corporation, partnership, association, or other business entity may use in its corporate, partnership, association, or business name any term or title restricted under subsection (a) of Code Section 43-10A-7 or the term “professional counseling,” “social work,” or “marriage and family therapy,” or any words, letters, titles, or figures indicating or implying that such entity or any of its employees, officers, or agents are practicing a specialty regulated under this article, unless each person practicing a specialty in that entity, except those persons exempt under paragraph (1), (4), (5), (6), (12), (14), or (15) of subsection (b) of Code Section 43-10A-7, is licensed under this article.

(b) Any corporation, partnership, association, or other business entity which violates subsection (a) of this Code section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than $500.00 nor more than $1,000.00 for each offense or by imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both.

History

Code 1981, § 43-7A-21, enacted by Ga. L. 1984, p. 1406, § 1; Ga. L. 1990, p. 1484, § 6; Ga. L. 1993, p. 330, § 7; Ga. L. 2021, p. 729, § 3/HB 395; Ga. L. 2022, p. 523, § 1/HB 972. The 2021 amendment, effective July 1, 2021, substituted “this article” for “this

chapter” twice in subsection (a). The 2022 amendment, effective July 1, 2022, substituted “(12), (14), or (15)” for “(11), (13), or (14)” in subsection (a), and added “or by imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both” at the end of subsection (b).