Why and when to use @JvmStatic in Kotlin companion objects?

Hi everyone! I started learning Kotlin and am rewriting an old Java project. I encountered an unclear situation with companion objects. I have this Kotlin code: ```kotlin class MyUtils { companion object { fun formatDate(date: Date): String { // date formatting return SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd", Locale.US).format(date) } const val MAX_COUNT = 100 } } ``` From Java code, I'm trying to call this method like this: ```java String formatted = MyUtils.formatDate(new Date()); ``` But the compiler gives an error! I have to write `MyUtils.Companion.formatDate(...)`, which looks terrible. I've read about the `@JvmStatic` annotation, but I don't fully understand: 1. Why does Kotlin behave this way? In Java, I could just call st