Commercial law (also known as business law, which covers also corporate law) is the body of law that governs business and commercial transactions. It is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of both private law and public law.

Commercial law includes within its compass such titles as principal and agent; carriage by land and sea; merchant shipping; guarantee; marine, fire, life, and accident insurance; bills of exchange and partnership. It can also be understood to regulate corporate contracts, hiring practices, and the manufacture and sales of consumer goods. Many countries have adopted civil codes that contain comprehensive statements of their commercial law. In the United States, commercial law is the province of both the United States Congress, under its power to regulate interstate commerce, and the states, under their police power. Efforts have been made to create a unified body of commercial law in the United States; the most successful of these attempts has resulted in the general adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code, which has been adopted in all 50 states (with some modification by state legislatures), the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories.

Guy Stuart Ritchie (born 10 September 1968) is an English screenwriter and film maker best known for directing Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes and its sequel.

Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the second of two children born to Amber (née Parkinson) and Captain John Vivian Ritchie (b. 1928), former Seaforth Highlanders serviceman and advertising executive. John Vivian's father was Major Stewart Ritchie, who died in France, in 1940, during World War Two. John Ritchie's mother was Doris Margaretta McLaughlin (b. 1896), daughter of Vivian Guy McLaughlin (b. 1865) and Edith Martineau (b. 1866). Most of Ritchie's family on the McLaughlin and Martineau lines were appointed Reverends, Barons or Knighted at some point. The peerage started with the Very Rev. Hubert McLaughlin (b. 1805), father of famous nurse Louisa McLaughlin, and ancestor of Patrick McLaughlin, who was the first in his direct family to be given the according title, as he was born into a blue collar family and worked hard to find nobility. Ritchie's mother, Amber, would later go on to marry a baronet herself. His father's second marriage was to Shireen Ritchie, Baroness Ritchie of Brompton, a former model and later Conservative politician and life peer.

David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972), known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.

He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989. After starring in films directed by Andrew Niccol, Clint Eastwood and David Cronenberg, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1999 for his performance in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley. In 2000 he won a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for his work in the film. In 2003, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in another Minghella film, Cold Mountain.

In 2006, he was one of the top ten most bankable movie stars in Hollywood. In 2007, he received an Honorary César and he was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He was a member of the main competition jury at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Law was born in Lewisham, South London, the second child of comprehensive school teachers Margaret Anne (née Heyworth) and Peter Robert Law; his father later became, according to Law, "the youngest headmaster in London". He has a sister, Natasha. Law was named after a "bit of both" the book Jude the Obscure and the song Hey Jude. He grew up in Blackheath, an area in the Borough of Lewisham, and was educated at John Ball Primary School in Blackheath and Kidbrooke School, before attending the Alleyn's School.