Section 202. General and special powers  


Latest version.
  • (a)  Each  corporation,  subject  to  any limitations provided in this
      chapter or any other  statute  of  this  state  or  its  certificate  of
      incorporation,   shall  have  power  in  furtherance  of  its  corporate
      purposes:
        (1) To have perpetual duration.
        (2) To sue and be sued in all courts and to participate in actions and
      proceedings, whether judicial, administrative, arbitrative or otherwise,
      in like cases as natural persons.
        (3) To have a corporate seal, and to alter such seal at pleasure,  and
      to  use  it  by  causing it or a facsimile to be affixed or impressed or
      reproduced in any other manner.
        (4) To purchase, receive, take by  grant,  gift,  devise,  bequest  or
      otherwise,  lease, or otherwise acquire, own, hold, improve, employ, use
      and otherwise deal in and  with,  real  or  personal  property,  or  any
      interest therein, wherever situated.
        (5)  To  sell,  convey, lease, exchange, transfer or otherwise dispose
      of, or mortgage or pledge, or create a security interest in, all or  any
      of its property, or any interest therein, wherever situated.
        (6)  To  purchase, take, receive, subscribe for, or otherwise acquire,
      own, hold, vote, employ,  sell,  lend,  lease,  exchange,  transfer,  or
      otherwise  dispose  of,  mortgage, pledge, use and otherwise deal in and
      with, bonds and  other  obligations,  shares,  or  other  securities  or
      interests  issued  by  others,  whether  engaged in similar or different
      business, governmental, or other activities.
        (7)  To  make  capital   contributions   or   subventions   to   other
      not-for-profit corporations.
        (8)   To  accept  subventions  from  other  persons  or  any  unit  of
      government.
        (9) To make contracts, give guarantees and incur  liabilities,  borrow
      money  at such rates of interest as the corporation may determine, issue
      its  notes,  bonds  and  other  obligations,  and  secure  any  of   its
      obligations  by  mortgage or pledge of all or any of its property or any
      interest therein, wherever situated.
        (10) To lend money, invest and reinvest its funds, and take  and  hold
      real  and  personal  property  as  security  for the payment of funds so
      loaned or invested.
        (11) To conduct the activities of the corporation and have offices and
      exercise the powers granted by this chapter in any  jurisdiction  within
      or without the United States.
        (12)  To  elect or appoint officers, employees and other agents of the
      corporation, define their duties, fix their reasonable compensation  and
      the  reasonable  compensation  of  directors, and to indemnify corporate
      personnel.  Such  compensation  shall  be  commensurate  with   services
      performed.
        (13)  To  adopt,  amend or repeal by-laws, including emergency by-laws
      made pursuant to subdivision seventeen of section twelve  of  the  state
      defense  emergency  act,  relating to the activities of the corporation,
      the conduct of its affairs, its rights or powers or the rights or powers
      of its members, directors or officers.
        (14) To make donations, irrespective of  corporate  benefit,  for  the
      public welfare or for community fund, hospital, charitable, educational,
      scientific,  civic  or  similar  purposes,  and  in time of war or other
      national emergency in aid thereof.
        (15) To  be  a  member,  associate  or  manager  of  other  non-profit
      activities or to the extent permitted in any other jurisdiction to be an
      incorporator   of   other  corporations,  and  to  be  a  partner  in  a
      redevelopment company formed under the private housing finance law.
    
        (16) To have and exercise all powers necessary to effect any or all of
      the purposes for which the corporation is formed.
        (b)   If  any  general  or  special  law  heretofore  passed,  or  any
      certificate of incorporation, shall  limit  the  amount  of  property  a
      corporation  may  take  or hold, or the yearly income from the corporate
      assets or any part thereof, such corporation may take and hold  property
      of  the  value  of  fifty  million dollars or less, or the yearly income
      derived from which shall be six million dollars or less, or may  receive
      yearly income from such corporate assets of six million dollars or less,
      notwithstanding  any  such  limitations.  In computing the value of such
      property, no increase in value arising otherwise than from  improvements
      made thereon shall be taken into account.
        (c)  When  any corporation shall have sold or conveyed any part of its
      real property, the supreme court, notwithstanding a restriction  in  any
      general  or special law, may authorize it to purchase and hold from time
      to time other real property, upon satisfactory proof that the  value  of
      the  property  so purchased does not exceed the value of the property so
      sold and conveyed within the three years next preceding the application.
        (d) A corporation formed under  general  or  special  law  to  provide
      parks,  playgrounds  or cemeteries, or buildings and grounds for camp or
      grove meetings. Sunday school assemblies, cemetery purposes, temperance,
      missionary, educational, scientific, musical and other meetings, subject
      to the ordinances and police regulations of the county, city,  town,  or
      village  in  which  such  parks,  playgrounds, cemeteries, buildings and
      grounds are situated, may appoint from time to time one or more  special
      policemen,  with  power  to  remove  the  same at pleasure. Such special
      policemen shall preserve order in and  about  such  parks,  playgrounds,
      cemeteries,  buildings  and  grounds, and the approaches thereto, and to
      protect the same from injury, and shall enforce  the  established  rules
      and  regulations  of the corporation. Every policeman so appointed shall
      within fifteen days after his appointment and before entering  upon  the
      duties  of  his office, take and subscribe the oath of office prescribed
      in the thirteenth article of the constitution of the state of New  York,
      which  oath  shall  be  filed  in  the office of the county clerk of the
      county where such grounds are situated. A policeman appointed under this
      section when on duty shall wear conspicuously a metallic shield with the
      name of the corporation  which  appointed  him  inscribed  thereon.  The
      compensation  of policemen appointed under this section shall be paid by
      the corporation by which they are appointed.
        (e) Any wilful trespass in or upon  any  of  the  parks,  playgrounds,
      buildings  or  grounds  provided  for  the  purposes  mentioned  in  the
      preceding paragraph, or upon the  approaches  thereto,  and  any  wilful
      injury  to  any of the said parks, playgrounds, buildings or grounds, or
      to any trees, shrubbery, fences, fixtures or other property  thereon  or
      pertaining  thereto,  and any wilful disturbance of the peace thereon by
      intentional breach of the rules and regulations of the corporation, is a
      misdemeanor.
        (f) No corporation shall conduct activities in New  York  state  under
      any name, other than that appearing in its certificate of incorporation,
      without  compliance  with  the  filing provisions of section one hundred
      thirty of the general business law governing  the  conduct  of  business
      under an assumed name.