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Summer 2006 Newsletter


Content

Brave New World

Business Not Pleasure

Summertime Blues

All That Glitters...

Casting The Net

Trust Gordon?

It Ain't Over...

One In The Eye

Keep Your Nose Clean

Foreign Affairs

When Is A Car...

Don't Walk Away

Avoiding, The Issue

Brown Is Anti-PC

VAT's Up Doc?

Fuel's Gold

An Age-old Question?

That's Unfair!

Year In Year Out

How Hard To Try?

It's A Rip-Off!

Outlaws Win

Show Some Restraint

Not Our Problem

They Cannot Be Serious?

Merry-Go-Round

Pension Disappointments

That's Unfair!


If you own more than 50% of a company, you can appoint the directors (e.g. yourself), so you can do pretty much what you like, can't you? Not quite. The law prohibits directors from carrying on the business in a way that is "unfairly prejudicial" to the minority shareholders. It's not something that goes to court very often - perhaps because the minority don't always know what the directors get up to, unless they take a keen interest in the annual accounts.

In a recent case, two men ran a company together. They fell out and agreed to go their separate ways. It was intended that one would buy the other out, but this fell through. The one who stayed in control of the company then sacked his ex-colleague and transferred some of the assets out of the company into a new business he had set up on his own. The court held that this was not acceptable, and issued orders to force the director to compensate his minority shareholder and to buy him out at a fair value.

If you run a company with outside shareholders, you have to consider their interests and make sure that you comply with all the company law requirements on reporting, meetings and votes. If you need help with that, we will be happy to advise you.