{
  "id": "BRD-001",
  "slug": "brd-001",
  "title": "A legal company name is required for every entity but a sole proprietor",
  "statement": "The legal company name field must be populated for every entity type except sole proprietor, where TCR wants it omitted and the person's name used instead.",
  "rationale": "The legal name is what every downstream check keys on — the IRS match, the duplicate-brand check, the vetting report — so an empty one does not fail politely at the end, it makes the whole registration unverifiable. The sole-proprietor carve-out is the part that catches people: submitting a company name there is as wrong as omitting one anywhere else.",
  "layer": "BRAND",
  "layerSlug": "brand",
  "object": "brand.company_name",
  "severity": "BLOCKING",
  "detectability": [
    "DETERMINISTIC"
  ],
  "failureClass": "RETRY_FIELD",
  "authorities": [
    "TCR",
    "AWS",
    "Bandwidth",
    "Twilio"
  ],
  "applicabilityText": "Applies to every 10DLC registration.",
  "universal": true,
  "remediation": "Enter the legal entity name exactly as it appears on the IRS CP-575 or 147C letter. For a sole proprietor, leave this field empty and populate the first and last name fields instead. Done when the name here matches the tax record character for character.",
  "example": "company_name: Acme Coffee Co, LLC",
  "pitfalls": [
    "A sole proprietor who types their trading name here is routed into the wrong verification path and fails an identity check that was never meant to run."
  ],
  "phase": "approval",
  "automated": true,
  "url": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-001/",
  "markdown": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-001.md",
  "registry": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/",
  "updated": "2026-07-25",
  "licence": "CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}