A board of directors is an executive committee that jointly supervise the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organization, or a government agency.
Corporate law is the body of law governing the rights, relations, and conduct of persons, companies, organizations and businesses. The term refers to the legal practice of law relating to corporations, or to the theory of corporations. Corporate law often describes the law relating to matters which derive directly from the life-cycle of a corporation. It thus encompasses the formation, funding, governance, and death of a corporation.
Ultra vires is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act which requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is intra vires. Acts that are intra vires may equivalently be termed "valid", and those that are ultra vires termed "invalid".
In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and South Africa, apparent authority relates to the doctrines of the law of agency. It is relevant particularly in corporate law and constitutional law. Apparent authority refers to a situation where a reasonable third party would understand that an agent had authority to act. This means a principal is bound by the agent's actions, even if the agent had no actual authority, whether express or implied. It raises an estoppel because the third party is given an assurance, which he relies on and would be inequitable for the principal to deny the authority given. Apparent authority can legally be found, even if actual authority has not been given.
Foss v Harbottle (1843) 2 Hare 461, 67 ER 189 is a leading English precedent in corporate law. In any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself. This is known as "the proper plaintiff rule", and the several important exceptions that have been developed are often described as "exceptions to the rule in Foss v Harbottle". Amongst these is the "derivative action", which allows a minority shareholder to bring a claim on behalf of the company. This applies in situations of "wrongdoer control" and is, in reality, the only true exception to the rule. The rule in Foss v Harbottle is best seen as the starting point for minority shareholder remedies.
Royal British Bank v Turquand (1856) 6 E&B 327 is a UK company law case that held people transacting with companies are entitled to assume that internal company rules are complied with, even if they are not. This "indoor management rule" or the "Rule in Turquand's Case" is applicable in most of the common law world. It originally mitigated the harshness of the constructive notice doctrine, and in the UK it is now supplemented by the Companies Act 2006 sections 39-41.
The United Kingdom company law regulates corporations formed under the Companies Act 2006. Also governed by the Insolvency Act 1986, the UK Corporate Governance Code, European Union Directives and court cases, the company is the primary legal vehicle to organise and run business. Tracing their modern history to the late Industrial Revolution, public companies now employ more people and generate more of wealth in the United Kingdom economy than any other form of organisation. The United Kingdom was the first country to draft modern corporation statutes, where through a simple registration procedure any investors could incorporate, limit liability to their commercial creditors in the event of business insolvency, and where management was delegated to a centralised board of directors. An influential model within Europe, the Commonwealth and as an international standard setter, UK law has always given people broad freedom to design the internal company rules, so long as the mandatory minimum rights of investors under its legislation are complied with.
Greenhalgh v Arderne Cinemas Ltd [1946] 1 All ER 512; [1951] Ch 286 is UK company law case concerning the issue of shares, and "fraud on the minority", as an exception to the rule in Foss v Harbottle.
Ashbury Railway Carriage and Iron Co Ltd v Riche (1875) LR 7 HL 653 is a UK company law case, which concerned the objects clause of a company's memorandum of association.
Lloyds Bank Ltd. v. Bundy[1974] EWCA 8 is a landmark case in English contract law, on undue influence. It is remarkable for the judgment of Lord Denning MR who advanced that English law should adopt the approach developing in some American jurisdictions that all impairments of autonomy could be collected under a single principle of "inequality of bargaining power."
Capacity in English law refers to the ability of a contracting party to enter into legally binding relations. If a party does not have the capacity to do so, then subsequent contracts may be invalid; however, in the interests of certainty, there is a prima facie presumption that both parties hold the capacity to contract. Those who contract without a full knowledge of the relevant subject matter, or those who are illiterate or unfamiliar with the English language, will not often be released from their bargains.
Cotman v Brougham [1918] AC 514 is UK company law case concerning the objects clause of a company, and the problems involving the ultra vires doctrine. It held that a clause stipulating the courts should not read long lists of objects as subordinate to one another was valid.
An objects clause is a provision in a company's constitution stating the purpose and range of activities for which the company is carried on. In UK company law, until reforms enacted in the Companies Act 1989 and the Companies Act 2006, an objects clause circumscribed the capacity, or power, of a company to act. To avoid problems, long and unwieldy 'catch-all' objects clauses were often drafted to include as much potential activity as possible, and thus avoid dealings being found to be ultra vires: the legal position was that any contract entered into beyond the power, or ultra vires, would be deemed void ab initio.
Edwards v Halliwell [1950] 2 All ER 1064 is a UK labour law and UK company law case about the internal organisation of a trade union, or a company, and litigation by members to make an executive follow the organisation's internal rules.
Progress Property Co Ltd v Moorgarth Group Ltd[2010] UKSC 55 is a UK company law case concerning the circumstances by which a transaction at an undervalue would be considered an unauthorised return of capital.
Attribution of liability to United Kingdom companies involves the rules of contract, agency, capacity, tort and crime as they relate to UK company law. They establish under what circumstances a company may be sued for the actions of its directors, employees and other agents.
Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington LBC[1996] UKHL 12 is a leading English trusts law case concerning the circumstances under which a resulting trust arises. It held that such a trust must be intended, or must be able to be presumed to have been intended. In the view of the majority of the House of Lords, presumed intention to reflect what is conscionable underlies all resulting and constructive trusts.
Sinclair v Brougham [1914] AC 398 is an English trusts law case, concerning the right of depositors to recover sums which were deposited to a building society under contracts of deposit which were beyond the powers of the building society.
Credit Suisse International v Stichting Vestia Groep[2014] EWHC 3103 (Comm) was a decision of the High Court of Justice relating to the doctrine of ultra vires and the effect of contractual representations made under an ISDA Master Agreement on the doctrine.
The Duomatic principle is a principle of English company law relating to the informal approval of actions by a company's shareholders. The principle is named after one of the earlier judicial decisions in which it was recognised: Re Duomatic Ltd [1969] 2 Ch 365, although in that case Buckley J was approving an older statement of the law from the decisions in In re Express Engineering [1920] 1 Ch 466 and Parker and Cooper Ltd v Reading [1926] Ch 975. It origins lie in the obiter dictum comments of Lord Davey in Salomon v Salomon & Co Ltd where he stated that 'the company is bound in a matter intra vires by the unanimous agreement of its members'.
