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Imagine the first sentence in a news report, where X and Y are company names:

Czech company X and Tatarstan-based Y have signed an agreement..

Would it be okay to omit the articles? Or would it look better as

The Czech company X and the Tatarstan-based Y have signed an agreement..

It seems to me that without the articles it looks more natural. We're introducing the companies, after all, and it is clear that there are more than one company existing in both the Czech Republic and Tatarstan.

I've googled Google News and found this:

Two other auto manufacturers that are zeroing in on Israel are Spanish company SEAT and Czech company Skoda.

But:

In the next presentation Andrey Denisyuk from the Czech company TESCAN talked about correlative microscopy techniques for electron...

And:

The subcontractor of Spartans is the Czech company Aero Vodochody, which is owned by Penta investment group.

The last two examples could've been written by non-native speakers, but they seem to be okay too..

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    Articles have become the matter of style than grammar I guess! :)
    – Maulik V
    Commented Nov 14, 2014 at 9:34
  • @MaulikV Yep. (0: A new rule, rather: you can make banish articles from some positions in your sentence, but make them go out in style.
    – CowperKettle
    Commented Nov 14, 2014 at 10:10

2 Answers 2

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If you omit the name, there is no doubt; an article is required. If we are defining the company, then it's the definite article that is needed:

The Czech company and the Tatarstan-based company have signed an agreement.

Adding the name should make no difference:

The Czech company X and the Tatarstan-based company Y have signed an agreement.

However, as you have observed, it is quite common now for some people to omit the article. My impression is that this is most common in newspapers and television new and documentaries. We seem to have free choice these days.

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    The alternative viewpoint is that X and Y have signed an agreement is acceptable, so adding a descriptor with no article should also be allowed.
    – 200_success
    Commented Nov 14, 2014 at 8:45
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I would write that sentence as follows:

The Czech company Widgets Inc and Tatarstan-based Gizmos LLC have signed an agreement.

That is, I would use the article when "Czech" is the adjective but leave the article out when -based is the adjective and the word "company" is not repeated.

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