The East India Trading companies (British, Dutch, Swedish, Prussian etc) were all monopolies. They were granted charter by the state to be the sole provider of East Indian trade in their respective country.

When these companies were formed, in the age of mercantilism, it was seen as necessary in order to be able to guarantee the profits needed to get enough investment to start the prohibitively expensive journies. East Indiamen were among the largest, most well-crewed and especially heavily armed merchant ships of the age, and very expensive.

For the British East India company this meant a rapid rise in wealth and influence, until it controlled large parts of India and fielded its own army and navy and reaped enormous profits (at times causing extreme devastation and famine in India, such as the Bengal famine of 1770).

The Company had problems administrating and running the vast expanse of territory it had acquired, and got itself into financial problems towards the latter half of the 18th century. The administration of allt he territory was simply too much of a burden for the Company. In the East India Company Act of 1773, the crown lent the Company £40 000, but also established that the Company's territory was part of the crown and that the Company was subject to the Parliament, which apoointed a Governor-General to India.

The Sepoy Uprising spelled the end of the British Easy India Company's monopoly in India - the British state took over administration of the Company's troops, naval assets and territory, basically nationalising the Company in 1858.

The Company as such remained as a British state-owned company until it was dissolved 1873. Recently (2005), an Indian national by the name Sanjiv Mehta bought the name and have recreated the East India Company as a venture for exporting high-quality Indian goods.

Other nations East India companies were usually dissolved around the time of the French reovlution or the Napoleonic war, as trade monopolies were falling out of fashion and the unsecure political situation made long-range trade voyages dangerous. The Swedish East India Company made its last journey 1803 and was dissolved 1814.

The Batavian Republic siezed the Dutch East India company 1795 and dissolved it 1798.

The Danish East India Company was gutted by the British 1807-1814 and practically non-existant after that, although it was formally dissolved 1845, after Denmark sold its last Asiatic holdings to Britain.

The French East India Company lost its monopoly 1790, and declined to an extent that it was dissolved 1794.

The Prussian East India Company was destroyed by the French occupation of Prussia's then only North Sea port of Emden 1757.

Generally, the companies were built around monopoly, and when it ended, they were unable or unwilling to adapt, declined and were taken over by the state and/or dissolved.