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Legal Aspects of Doing Business in North America - 2nd Edition - Loose leaf
Legal Aspects of Doing Business in North America - 2nd Edition - Electronic
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Kentucky
Cawood Smith
Attorney of Law
Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Introduction
The foreign business person contemplating a move to the United States will quickly
recognize widespread uniformity in the laws affecting an operation involving the various
states. This is due, in part, to the preeminence of federal power, and to the almost universal
adherence by the states to the Uniform Commercial Code. The Code has been adopted in
Kentucky without substantial changes, and regulates virtually every kind of commercial
transaction. For this reason, the choice of a business location in the United States will certainly
involve more than the study of state laws. The author believes the reader will find
this chapter far more useful if a brief look is given to the state itself.
Kentucky is located in the south central United States and is bordered by Indiana and Ohio
to the north,WestVirginia andVirginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Illinois and
Missouri to the west. Kentucky ranks thirty-seventh in size among the fifty states and has
an area of 104,620 square kilometers.
Within this area are abundant resources, placing Kentucky among the top few mineral
producing states overall, exceeded only by Wyoming in coal production. The state’s
immense coal reserves, approximately 28.7 billion tons, enable distributors to provide an
abundance of electricity to industrial customers at the lowest overall electric utility rates
east of the Mississippi River. Other important minerals produced include natural gas,
crushed stone, and petroleum, as well as sand and gravel, cement (portland and masonry),
ball clay, natural gas liquids, lime, fluorspar and zinc. The total output of Kentucky’s mineral
production in 1988 amounted to more than US $4.7 billion. In addition, Kentucky has
12 million acres of commercial forest land, 47 per cent of the total land area. The main
species of trees are oak and poplar and are growing faster than they are being cut. Kentucky
ranks fourth among the hardwood producing states in the United States.
The population of Kentucky is approximately 3,726,000 people, one-fifth of whom are
clustered in the state’s twelve largest cities. Kentucky has only two cities with populations
over 100,000, Louisville and Lexington, with 281,880 and 225,660 people respectively.
Kentucky’s anticipated population in the year 2000 is 4,053,537 and 4,252,057 for the
year 2020. The largest European representation, by far, among Kentuckians is German,
followed by Spanish, French, and Italian descendants.
Kentucky’s largest industry groups, based on their contribution to the total state gross
product, are manufacturing; finance and real estate; services; retail trade; and
