Authority to transact business required

(a) A foreign corporation may not transact business in this State until it obtains a certificate of authority from the department director. (b) The following activities, in addition to others, do not constitute transacting business within the meaning of subsection (a): (1) Maintaining, defending, or settling any proceeding; (2) Holding meetings of the board of directors or members or carrying on other activities concerning internal corporate affairs; (3) Maintaining bank accounts; (4) Maintaining offices or agencies for the transfer, exchange, and registration of memberships or securities, or maintaining trustees or depositaries with respect to those securities; (5) Selling through independent contractors; (6) Soliciting or obtaining orders, whether by mail, through employees, agents, or otherwise, if the orders require acceptance outside this State before they become contracts; (7) Creating or acquiring indebtedness, mortgages, and security interests in real or personal property; (8) Securing or collecting debts or enforcing mortgages and security interests in property securing the debts; (9) Owning, without more, real or personal property; (10) Conducting an isolated transaction that is completed within thirty days and that is not one in the course of repeated transactions of a like nature; (11) Transacting business in interstate commerce. (c) The list of activities in subsection (b) shall not be limited to the activities listed.