董事会

As fiduciaries, the directors may not put themselves in a position where their interests and duties conflict with the duties that they owe to the company. The law takes the view that good faith must not only be done, but must be manifestly seen to be done, and zealously patrols the conduct of directors in this regard; and will not allow directors to escape liability by asserting that his decision was in fact well founded. Traditionally, the law has divided conflicts of duty and interest into three sub-categories.

By definition, where a director enters into a transaction with a company, there is a conflict between the director's interest (to do well for himself out of the transaction) and his duty to the company (to ensure that the company gets as much as it can out of the transaction). This rule is so strictly enforced that, even where the conflict of interest or conflict of duty is purely hypothetical, the directors can be forced to disgorge all personal gains arising from it. In Aberdeen Ry v Blaikie (1854) 1 Macq HL 461 Lord Cranworth stated in his judgment that:

"A corporate body can only act by agents, and it is, of course, the duty of those agents so to act as best to promote the interests of the corporation whose affairs they are conducting. Such agents have duties to discharge of a fiduciary nature towards their principal. And it is a rule of universal application that no one, having such duties to discharge, 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... So strictly is this principle adhered to that no question is allowed to be raised as to the fairness or unfairness of the contract entered into..." (emphasis added)

However, in many jurisdictions the members of the company are permitted to ratify transactions which would otherwise fall foul of this principle. It is also largely accepted in most jurisdictions that this principle should be capable of being abrogated in the company's constitution.

In many countries there is also a statutory duty to declare interests in relation to any transactions, and the director can be fined for failing to make disclosure.^[19]

Directors must not, without the informed consent of the company, use for their own profit the company's assets, opportunities, or information. This prohibition is much less flexible that the prohibition against the transactions with the company, and attempts to circumvent it using provisions in the articles have met with limited success.

In Regal (Hastings) Ltd v Gulliver [1942] All ER 378 the House of Lords, in upholding what was regarded as a wholly unmeritorious claim by the shareholders,^[20] held that:

"(i) that what the directors did was so related to the affairs of the company that it can properly be said to have been done in the course of their management and in the utilisation of their opportunities and special knowledge as directors; and (ii) that what they did resulted in profit to themselves."

And accordingly, the directors were required to disgorge the profits that they made, and the shareholders received their windfall.

The decision has been followed in several subsequent cases,^[21] and is now regarded as settled law.

Directors cannot, clearly, compete directly with the company without a conflict of interests arising. Similarly, they should not act as directors of competing companies, as their duties to each company would then conflict with each other.^[22]

In practice, it is not wholly unusual to see directors serve for two or more companies in competing fields, but it is tacitly assumed that they may only do so if the companies consent.

Traditionally, the level of care and skill which has to be demonstrated by a director has been framed largely with reference to the non-executive director. In Re City Equitable Fire Insurance Co [1925] Ch 407, it was expressed in purely subjective terms, where the court held that:

"a director need not exhibit in the performance of his duties a greater degree of skill than may reasonably be expected from a person of his knowledge and experience." (emphasis added)

However, this decision was based firmly in the older notions (see above) that prevailed at the time as to the mode of corporate decision making, and effective control residing in the shareholders; if they elected and put up with an incompetent decision maker, they should not have recourse to complain.

However, a more modern approach has since developed, and in Dorchester Finance Co v Stebbing [1989] BCLC 498 the court held that the rule in Equitable Fire related only to skill, and not to diligence. With respect to diligence, what was required was:

"such care as an ordinary man might be expected to take on his own behalf."

This was an objective test, and one deliberately pitched at a higher level.

More recently, it has been suggested that both the tests of skill and diligence should be assessed objectively.^[23]

In most jurisdictions, the law provides for a variety of remedies in the event of a breach by the directors of their duties:

1. injunction or declaration
2. damages or compensation
3. restoration of the company's property
4. rescission of the relevant contract
5. account of profits
6. summary dismissal

Historically, director's duties have been owed almost exclusively to the company and its members, and the board was expected to exercise its powers for the financial benefit of the company. However, more recently there have been attempts to "soften" the position, and provide for more scope for directors to act as good corporate citizens. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Companies Act 2006, not yet in force, will require a director of a UK company "to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole", but sets out six factors to which a director must have regards in fulfilling the duty to promote success. These are:

• the likely consequences of any decision in the long term
• the interests of the company’s employees
• the need to foster the company’s business relationships with suppliers, customers and others
• the impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment
• the desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct, and
• the need to act fairly as between members of a company

This represents a considerable departure from the traditional notion that directors' duties are owed only to the company. Previously in the United Kingdom, under the Companies Act 1985, protections for non-member stakeholders were considerably more limited (see e.g. s.309 which permitted directors to take into account the interests of employees but which could only be enforced by the shareholders and not by the employees themselves. The changes have therefore been the subject of some criticism. [3]

While the primary responsibility of boards is to ensure that the corporation's management is performing its job correctly, actually achieving this in practice can be difficult. In a number of "corporate scandals" of the 1990s, one notable feature revealed in subsequent investigations is that boards were not aware of the activities of the managers that they hired, and the true financial state of the corporation. A number of factors may be involved in this tendency:

• Most boards largely rely on management to report information to them, thus allowing management to place the desired 'spin' on information, or even conceal or lie about the true state of a company.
• Boards of directors are part-time bodies, whose members meet only occasionally and may not know each other particularly well. This unfamiliarity can make it difficult for board members to question management.
• CEOs tend to be rather forceful personalities. In some cases, CEOs are accused of exercising too much influence over the company's board.
• Directors may not have the time or the skills required to understand the details of corporate business, allowing management to obscure problems.
• The same directors who appointed the present CEO oversee his or her performance. This makes it difficult for some directors to dispassionately evaluate the CEO's performance.
• Directors often feel that a judgement of a manager, particularly one who has performed well in the past, should be respected. This can be quite legitimate, but poses problems if the manager's judgement is indeed flawed.
• All of the above may contribute to a culture of "not rocking the boat" at board meetings.

Because of this, the role of boards in corporate governance, and how to improve their oversight capability, has been examined carefully in recent years, and new legislation in a number of jurisdictions, and an increased focus on the topic by boards themselves, has seen changes implemented to try and improve their performance.

In the United States, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) has introduced new standards of accountability on the board of directors for U.S. companies or companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Under the Act members of the board risk large fines and prison sentences in the case of accounting crimes. Internal controls are now the direct responsibility of directors. This means that the vast majority of public companies now have hired internal auditors to ensure that the company adheres to the highest standards of internal controls. Additionally, these internal auditors are required by law to report directly to the audit board. This group consists of board of directors members where more than half of the members are outside the company and one of those members outside the company is an accounting expert.