Company law

The tenth entry is o conselho de administração, and its second half is the costliest false friend on this list, because the English word does not merely shift a shade of meaning: it points at the opposite state of affairs. A administração in Portuguese is the running of the company, and the body that does the running is o conselho de administração. In English company usage the noun « administration » has been captured by insolvency law. A firm that goes « into administration » can no longer pay what it owes and has been put under the control of an « administrator », an insolvency practitioner brought in from outside who is not a director at all. So a report that a company is « in administration » is a report of failure, and « the administration council » would be read, if it were read as anything, as the committee closing the place down. The body that runs a healthy company is « the board of directors », or simply « the board », and the people sitting on it are « the directors ». Keep « administration » for the day the lights go out.