I. Introduction In the August 2015, most of the Australian business media reported that the board of Federation Centre (“FDC”) sacked Steven Sewell as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and then replaced him with Angus McNaughton as a new CEO. This removal subsequently surprised investors and markets because it occurred just two months after the completion of the merger between FDC and Novion Property Group (“Novion”). Moreover, there is no further explanation from the board of FDC about the reason of removal Steven Sewell. Consequently, the shares of the FDC declined 6% since the replacement. The removal of a director by the board in the FDC case creates legal and ethical issues, which ultimately led to the onset of commercial issues. Despite the legal, ethical and commercial issues, this case is strongly indicated that there are some problems in the mechanism of removal directors stipulated in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (“Corporations Act”) S 203D and S 203E. This indication is underpinned by some cases in the Australian court in which directors are removed also by the board. Therefore, this paper will analyse the legal, ethical and commercial issues regarding with the removal of FDC’s director, discuss the problem in the procedure of removal directors stipulated in the legislation, and compare other regulations in the common law and civil law countries. Finally, drafts of new mechanism of dismissal directors will be provided in this research to reform Section 203D
In order to prove the breach of section 184, the following rules and duties must have been violated. A director commits an offence if they are reckless or intentionally dishonest, and fail to exercise their powers and discharge their duties in good faith in the best interests of the corporation or for a proper purpose .As mentioned earlier Mr Palmer was reckless in decision making by waving loans and using the company assets for private benefits and the company suffered had to go in voluntary administration. The second offence that needs to the violation of section 184 is that when a director commits an offence if they use their position with intentional dishonesty or recklessly in order to directly or indirectly gain an advantage for themselves, or someone else, or cause detriment to the corporation. Mr Palmer acted as a shadow director and his nephew agreed with all the decisions the corporation made such as political donations and transferring funds to another firms owned by Mr Palmer that caused detriment to Queensland Nickel. The third offence is a person who obtains information because they are, or have been, a director of a corporation commits an offence if they use the information with intentional dishonesty or recklessly. As
They are liable of facing the civil penalties as mentioned in part 9B of corporation act 2001. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) is the national body responsible for company registration and securities regulation in Australia. Under section 1317J(1) of the Corporations Act, ASIC can apply to the court for disqualifying the directors from managing corporations. Under section 206C of corporate act 2001, court possess a power to disqualify a person from managing affirm for a contravention of a civil penalty provision.
Corporate capacity and authority were essential legal concepts which contained rules for when and how a company ought to be legally recognised as having validly acted and entered into a binding contract with third parties. Broadly speaking, the rules which applied to corporate capacity were the ultra vires doctrine and the doctrine of constructive notice. In regard to the concept of corporate authority, both the ultra vires doctrine and the doctrine of constructive notice also applied however their application was curtailed by the Turquand rule. The Turquand rule therefore only applied when the authority of directors was in question. A definitional overview of the concepts of corporate capacity and authority will be provided below, along with brief description of the doctrine of constructive notice and the Turquand rule.
Farrar, J. (2008). Corporate Governance: theories, principles and practice. 2nd ed. South Melbourne, Vic: Oxford University Press
In many misfeasance cases against directors, those breaches maybe relatively uncontroversial. This draws into focus the question of whether the director has any common law or statutory defence, including the Duomatic principle and ratification by shareholders (CA 2006 S.239), available to a claim against him for restitution to the company. S.239(6)(a) preserves the Duomatic rule that if an informal unanimous consent is reached among voting shareholders, it is unnecessary to pass such ratification resolution through general meeting or written resolution. The first part will examine the scope and requirements of this rule to illustrate the validity of such assent. S.239(7) leaves the door open for rules of law, which refers to common law principles, to continue guiding ratification. It will be assessed how these rules impose limitations on the general ratification power conferred by s.239.
It is essential that the role, duties and responsibilities of directors are clearly defined. The Combined Code (2006) states that “the board’s role is to provide entrepreneurial leadership of the company within a framework of prudent and effective controls which enables risk to be assessed and managed”.
Equitable principles for directors were developed from fiduciary duties applied to trustees through common law. A director has a fiduciary duty to ensure that no conflict of interest exists between him and the company. This common law principle “the no conflict rule” was established in Keech v Sandford.7 Upholding this, Lord Cranworth LC held in Aberdeen Railway Co v Blaikie Bros,8 “And it is a rule….no one....shall be allowed to enter into engagements in which he has, or can have, a personal interest conflicting, or which possibly may conflict, with the interests of those whom he is bound to protect.” This principle was encompassed in the Companies Act 2006:
Bennett, 47 N.Y.2d 619 (N.Y. 1979) states, “the responsibility for business judgments must rest with the corporate directors; their individual capabilities and experience peculiarly qualify them for the discharge of that responsibility.” In other words, the court will allow some leeway in their corporate decisions due to their background and experience so the business judgment rule will apply. This case presents a three-person select committee that serves on behalf of the entire board of directors to handle special litigation for this corporation. A shareholder’s derivative action was brought against four of the board of directors in which this special litigation committee decided to terminate it. The shareholder’s felt this was unfair since the three-person committee is not a full representation of the board and the shareholders therefore, they should not be able to make those decisions. The three-person committee is unaffiliated with the 15 member board to keep decisions of the corporation fair. The court of appeals found no evidence proving the three-person committee was not unable to represent the full board and is protected by their decisions under the business judgment
This case attempts to study and analyze the decisions of the Sunbeam Board of Directors (BOD) during Albert Dunlap’s stint as the Sunbeam’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This analysis will comprise the CEO hiring and his shareholder primacy view, first year and second year CEO compensation package review and will conclude the BOD’s decision to fire the CEO. In July, 1996 Sunbeam was a dying brand, which struggled to survive in the increasingly competitive market-place and needed a savior.(case p. 2) Sunbeam’s BOD brought in Al Dunlap to turnaround this ailing firm, based on Dunlap’s proven ‘restructuring and downsizing’ track record. “For much of his career before coming to Sunbeam, Dunlap was known as the poster child of corporate restructuring (case p.1).”
Section 9 imposes the concept of a director, a person that is appointed to the position of directors, act as a director or who instruct the director to act. In the case of “Kangaroo”, Ralph is the CEO of the company, chief executive officer, who in charge of managing the company’s daily business and may be conferred with any of the power that the directors can exercise: S.198 C. Russell is known as CFO, chief financial officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. Whereby, Anton is stated to be a chair person, who exercise the procedural control over a meeting. Furthermore, Matt, Mike and sally are the non-executive directors who are not involve in the daily management but bring the independent
Control of a company is held to be in the hand of company directors and due to the degree of such control, fiduciary duties are imposed on them both under statue and common law provisions. The purpose of these duties are to ensure that directors exercise their power with reasonable care in the best interest of the corporation. Adherence to and compliance with these obligations is mandatory so as to hold directors accountable for their actions. The following essay will discuss whether or not the legislation is suitable and flexible enough or requires amendment with regards to Section 181 of the Corporations Act 2001(Cth) (‘Corporations Act’) and the approach to the interpretation of the terms ‘good faith’ or ‘best interest of the corporation’.
There is no clear framework of the rules that would cover the contingencies of a ruling to pierce the corporate veil Idoport Pty Ltd v National Australia Bank Ltd. The corporate Veil usually protects owners and shareholders from being held liable for corporate duties. Yet again a decision made by the court to lift that veil and would place the liability on shareholders, owners, administrators, executives and officers of the company without ownership interest. The purpose of this essay is to conduct an analysis on the concept of lifting the corporate veil and to review the different views on its fairness and equitability to present a better understanding of the notion, the methods used was throughout researching the numerous scholars views on the subject, case law and statutes examples, and the evidence provided by the empirical study of Ramsay & Noakes. When we discuss the lifting the corporate veil the first case that pops out is the case of Salomon V A. Salomon & Co Ltd, since the decisions of applying the corporate veil were first formed as a consequence of this case. The idea covers all of company law and distinguishes that a company is a separate legal entity from its members and directors. Furthermore, spencer (2012); have indicated that one of the core principles that followed the decision in Salomon v Salomon was the wide acceptance one man company’s. However In order to form a
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) is Australia’s corporate, market, financial services and consumer credit regulator (Australian Securities and Investments Commission, 2009). Following the collapse of Dick Smith, ASIC announced during its Annual Forum that it would investigate what occurred and subsequently commissioned the ‘McGrathNicol Advisory Firm’ to provide an in-depth report (Papadakis, 2016). The 122-page report was published on the 13th of July 2016 and sheds light on some of the underlying causes for Dick Smith’s failure. One of the more prevalent causes for the voluntary administration was Dick Smith’s expansion plan and a store network that was considerably larger than its competitors (McGrathNicol Advisory
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Corporate directors are binding by the law of duties expressly to act properly in interests of the company when performing their functions and exercising their power. Law terms not only promote good corporate governance to eliminate agency costs but also enforce fiduciary duties of directors to corporates. Despite the importance of complying with duties, Hong Kong directors, with interlocks a common situation, are challenged by the media on their capacity of standards compliance and high-quality performance for all directed corporations.