Legal Liability of Directors and Company Officials Part 2: Court Procedures, Indemnification and Insurance, and Administrative and Criminal Liability (Report to the Russian Securities Agency)

Abstract:     
This Article contains chapters 8-9, 11-13, and the Conclusion of a World Bank-sponsored Report, prepared in December 2006, to the Russian Federal Service on the Securities Market. We discuss the liability under company law of directors, senior company officials, and controlling shareholders of public companies in Canada, France, Germany, Korea, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (with a more limited look at Austria, the European Union, Italy, Japan, and Latvia), and recommend amendments to Russian Company Law. We propose measures to define the concepts of good faith and conflict of interest; establish duties of disclosure and confidentiality, extend duties under company law to controlling shareholders and de facto directors for conflict of interest transactions; and protect directors against liability for business decisions adopted without a conflict of interest.

A related article includes chapters 1 and 3 of the Report, and an introduction to the overall project by Prof. Black. These chapters address the substantive bases for liability of directors and company officials for breach of duty. See Legal Liability of Directors and Company Officials Part 1: Substantive Grounds for Liability (Report to the Russian Securities Agency), 2007 Columbia Business Law Review, pages 614-799, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1010306.

The full Report is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1001990 (English version) and http://ssrn.com/abstract=1001991 (Russian version). It also addresses duties of directors for a company in financial distress, duties of a managing organization, the role of labor law in governing the relationship between a company and its directors and officials, whether this relationship is contractual or legal in nature, and differences between public and nonpublic companies.

Keywords: Russia, company law, liability of directors and officers, indemnification, insurance, derivative suits

JEL Classifications: K22, K41

Accepted Paper Series