Dangers for nominee directors – and those appointing them
By Chris Robinson In Excello Law Blogs
Tuesday, August 18th, 2015
Directors’ responsibilities in sharp relief, and a piercing of the veil of limited liability?
There may be nothing new in the idea that a nominee director must exercise independent judgement and act in the interests of his own particular company, rather than the interests of a parent company or the person appointing him, but Central Bank of Ecuador v Conticorp SA provides an eye-watering illustration to make nominee directors sit up and think!
A Mr Taylor, acting as nominee of a banking group, was the sole director of a Bahamas company. He acted only on the instructions of the banking group, and was paid the princely sum of $2,500 a year for acting as director. On instructions, he signed away a portfolio of assets worth $190m in a transaction at an undervalue. He made no enquiries as to the commercial benefit to his company of the transaction, and did not exercise any independent judgement. Because of that, he was fixed with the knowledge of the nature of the transaction of those instructing him. He was found personally liable for the whole $190m, plus interest that took the claim over $1/2billion.
That can easily happen when someone takes the office of director without taking seriously the attached responsibilities. Perhaps more interesting from a legal perspective, and more worrying for corporate groups, is that the court also found that other group companies, and individuals in them, were also liable for the full amount due to their “dishonest assistance” of a breach of fiduciary duty. That potentially gives a claimant a much wider range of defendants to aim at, and could effectively avoid the limited liability of the company. It is not only the deluded nominee director who is at risk, but also those who give him instructions and devise the company’s transactions. The other people involved could could not honestly have considered the transactions to be in the company’s interests, in the light of what they knew, so they were liable for dishonest assistance.
Turning a blind eye can be enough to establish liability for dishonest assistance: “Dishonest assistance requires a dishonest state of mind on the part of the person who assists in a breach of trust. Such a state of mind may consist in knowledge that the transaction is one in which he cannot honestly participate (for example, a misappropriation of other people’s money), or it may consist in suspicion combined with a conscious decision not to make inquiries which might result in knowledge…” (Barlow Clowes International Ltd v Eurotrust International Ltd).
No-one should ever act as a “nominee” director, in the sense of blindly acting on the instructions of someone else; but nor should anyone assume that they can safely let such arrangements go ahead when it is plain that there is a breach of duty, or plain enough to require further investigation.
This article was written by Chris Robinson
Chris Robinson
A corporate lawyer for over 30 years, Chris was previously a partner in prominent commercial law firms in Birmingham, Oxford and Milton Keynes. He specialises in corporate law, including buying and selling, structuring and financing businesses, including raising capital through public markets, private equity or bank lending. As well as corporate deals and finance, Chris advises on EMI and other employee share schemes, partnerships and LLPs, corporate insolvency, trade marks, regulatory compliance in financial services and law firms, and commercial contracts. You can email Chris at [email protected]
