Abstract. The participants of internal and international economic exchanges, the partners that compete in a market economy are always the “enterprises”, no matter their name and form. In Romania after 1989, the economic legislation and practice took from other countries experience different terms to identify these participants: company, firm, economic agent, etc. The meaning of these terms has, as a rule, a different content than that devoted by Romanian commercial law to the term “enterprise”. According to this, there are presented some considerations based on the Romanian and European Community’s legislation that justify the necessity that the term “enterprise” regain a new content according to the dynamic of economic life and the European rules in force.

Keywords: enterprise; company; firm; economic agent; European competition law.