Duties of a Director under Singapore Companies Act
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This article discusses the duties of a director under the Singapore Companies Act, including disclosure of interests, acting in good faith, and avoiding conflicts of interest. It also covers the fiduciary duties of directors and the consequences of breaching these duties.
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Running head: CORPORATIONS LAW CASE STUDY ANALYSIS Name of the Student: Name of the University: Author Note:
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1 CORPORATIONS LAW 1)The common law tradition of English law was inherited by Singapore (Harding and Hien 2017). Actually, Singaporean system of the common law is described by the doctrine of judicial precedent called the stare decisis (Douglas 2019). As per this doctrine, law is formulated by the judges by construing to the legal principles as per the facts present in each case. In this respect, the judges are needed to apply the principle of ratio decidendi of the judges of higher court in the ambit of the same hierarchy. Hence it can be seen that in Singapore, the ratio decidendi given in the decisions of the Singapore Appellate court will bind on the judges of the Singapore High Court, Court of Magistrate and the District court. However, the decisions of the Courts of England and other Commonwealth countries have no effect on the Singapore courts. The lower courts in some cases have been given authority to avoid applying the concept of ratio decidendi provided in the previous decisions of high court. This is possible when it can materially differentiate between the facts of case that were under consideration in the lower courts from that intheprevioushighcourtdecisions.SinceSingaporefollowscommonlawjurisdiction, judgments given by the courts are also regarded as law source. However, a judge when hearing a case may not follow the decisions made previously by other judges in the courts of same level. Hence, a High court judge is not required to follow decisions given previously by other High Courts. The courts of the same level usually do this as a matter of rule unless there lies strong reasons for departing from the usual practice. Being the final court of Appeal in Singapore, the Appellate court is not bound by the decisions previously given by it or those of its predecessor courts like the Privy Council. The English common law has a very strong affect and influence for developing the Singapore law and it is evident in some of the traditional areas of common law such as Contract, restitution and tort. However, it is less evident in the other areas of statutes like Criminal law,
2 CORPORATIONS LAW Law of Evidence and Company Law. In respect of the statute based areas, Australian and Indian jurisdictions have stronger influence on the nature, content as well as approach of some portions of these statutes. It is observed that major portions of the law of Singapore specially the contract law, the property law, tort law and laws of equity and trust are judge made law. However, some parts have been modified now to some extent by the application of statutes (Chan 2015). It is generally seen that the Singapore courts have an erstwhile tendency to follow and adhere to the decisions given by English Courts. However, in recent days, a slight departure from the decisions of the English Courts is observed in their approach even in the traditional areas of common law. This type of development in local jurisprudence shows the need for indigenous Singaporean law and this is further motivated by the European legal developments having their impact on the British system of law. 2)Litigation means the process to take legal action. It forms the primary way of resolution of dispute in Singapore though there are other methods of litigation namely arbitration and mediation (Hwang 2018). Litigation is generally contrasted to the procedures of mediation, arbitration and natural evaluation that are quite cheaper. Litigation can be classified into two categories namely civil and criminal. For a criminal litigation, Public Prosecutor on behalf of the State prosecutes a criminal accused of committing an offence. On the other hand, in a civil litigation, an aggrieved party known as the plaintiff or a claimant makes the initiation of the legal proceedings against the defendant for pursuing a claim (Siyuan and Han 2018). Here in case of a civil litigation, both the parties are generally private parties and the State does not be a party to the proceedings like the criminal litigation except in the cases where the State is actually a plaintiff or a defendant in particular cases. Claims in civil litigation vary from tenancy related disputes to corporate disputes.
3 CORPORATIONS LAW Before starting any legal proceedings, where the claimant or the plaintiff has consulted a law firm to act or litigate for him, his appointed lawyer may send a letter of demand first asking the other party or the defendant to comply with the demands made by him or to continue with the law suit. When the demands are not met by the defendants, the lawyer may proceed with the legal proceedings. A civil suit is usually started when a filing of writ of summons is done and is processed by the court. Then such writ has to be served on the defendant. Such service is generally done by the clerk of the law firm who has the duty to deliver the writ in person to the defendant. In case of criminal trial, when a crime is committed, then the accused is arrested first and then officially charged in the court. It means that the accused will be informed and explained about the offence with which he is charged. Then the accused is asked whether he pleads guilty or not. He pleads not to be guilty, then it means that he disputes the charge and thus the trial starts. When the accused claims for trial by not pleading guilty, a pre trial conference is arranges for the case. The accused can be released on bail or allowed a pre trial remand till the pre trial conference is started. 3)In Singapore, the law of contract follows the common law principles where a contract consists of a legally enforceable agreement among two or more than twoparties having legal capacity in exchange of consideration to form a legal obligation between them (Hunter 2017). The main elements of a contract are as follows: Agreement: To form an agreement, meeting of the minds of the parties is mandatory. A contract is created by an offer by one party showing his willingness to get bound on the terms of the contract. It has to be accompanied by the communication of another party
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4 CORPORATIONS LAW expressing his assent to the offer made by the offeror. It can be bilateral or multi lateral. The offer and acceptance give the intention of one party to be bound with the terms of the agreement given by other. The court determines the intention of the parties objectively. Consideration: In order to validate a contract, consideration must be given. It can be anything from services to monetary amount. A promise will be enforceable to be a contract only when it is provided by consideration.However, past consideration cannot be considered. Legal capacities of parties: The parties must have capacity to enter into the contract. Minors, drunks and mentally impaired people are prohibited by law to enter into contracts. Contracts entered by them are void. When the parties to the contract do not have the required capacity to contract, it will be denoted as void. Intention: the parties have the intention of having legal obligation to enter into the contract. Certainty: In order to form a contract, the agreement has to be certain and complete sufficiently such that the rights and obligations of the parties can be determined and enforced. There are several methods by which an offer can be terminated are as follows: When the offeror revokes the offer, or When the offeree made a counter offer, or When offeree rejects an offer, or When the time of the offer is over, or When one of the parties has died or become disable, or When performing the contract has become illegal after the offeror made the offer.
5 CORPORATIONS LAW The usual rule states that revocation becomes operative only when it is known to the offeree that such revocation is made. Until and unless it is communicated, either directly or indirectly, to the offeree, he has the reason to trust that there lies an offer which can be accepted. When the offeror wants to revoke any offer, but if the offer is accepted by the offeree prior to the revocation notice, then a valid contract is said to be created. Counteroffer is regarded as conditional acceptance. For instance, if a price of 10,000 $ is accepted by a person, but further a term is added that new tires must be installed in the car, it construes to a conditional acceptance and hence forms a counter offer. The offer is often terminated by the rejection to it. When the offeree communicated that the offer cannot to be acceptable constitutes a rejection. When the offer refers to that it is open up to a particular date, the offer will terminate on that very date if it is not accepted. It is natural when the offeror states that the offer will become void after a specific time period expires. If time passes and the offeree makes an attempt to accept it, this can be regarded as a counter offer given by the offeree and the offeror can either accept or reject it. If no time is specified in the offer, it will be inferred to be terminated after the lapse of a reasonable time. If performing of the contract turns illegal after making of offer, offer will terminate. Again, offer is terminated, if either of the parties dies or becomes incompetent mentally. 4)The defences that can be claimed by the tort feasor are as follows: Contributory negligence: This type of defence occurs when the plaintiff failed to take reasonable steps that combined with the negligence of the defendant for causing the injuries to the plaintiff (Fordham 2016). In other words, the plaintiff may avoid the
6 CORPORATIONS LAW injuries if both of them are not negligent. In order to claim the defence of contributory negligence, it has to be proved by the defendant that the claimant failed to take reasonable care in the situation for own safety. This can be entrenched inDavies v Swan Motor co [1949] 2 KB 291 case. The burden of proof is on the defendant to prove these. Moreover, the defendant has to show that the failure of taking care forms the contributory reason behind the damage suffered. This is seen inFroom v Butcher [1976] QB 286 case where failure to wear a seat belt can be regarded as the contributory negligence. Volenti non fit injuria: It is actually a doctrine of common law that states that when someone willingly places themself in such a position where harm may cause harm, then they are barred of bringing claim against each other for tort. It is observed inNettleship v Weston [1971] 3 WLR 370 case. Ex turpi causa: The latin maxim states that action cannot be made on immoral or illegal conduct. It is observed in the case ofKirkham v Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police [1990] 2 QB 283. Absence of duty: if the tort feasor can prove he had no duty to take care of the plaintiff, it can amount to a valid defence against the claim of the plaintiff as seen in the case of White v Blackmore [1972] 3 WLR 296. 5)The duties of a director under the Singapore Companies Act 2006 are mentioned under sections 156, 157 and 162 of the Act. These duties are discussed in detail: Under the provision of section 157A of the Companies Act (CA) the management of the company has been vested upon the board of directors.
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7 CORPORATIONS LAW Section 156 of the Companies Act requires a director to make any disclosure regarding his interest in any transaction o any proposed transaction at the director’s meeting. Exception of the provision of this section can be found under the section 156 (3) of the Act. Section 157 of the Companies Act requires a director to be acting in a honest and reasonably diligent way for the discharge of his duties as a director of the company. Section 162 of the Companies Act restricts a director from taking loan from the company. Apart from the above mentioned sections there are certain duties known as fiduciary duties that are required to be followed by the directors under the Common Law. These duties are discussed as under: oActing in honest and good faith for the interest of the company: A director under the common law is required to act honestly and in good faith for the company’s interest. This means that a director is required to be acting in the interest of solely the company. A director is further restricted to share any information relating to the company for his own self interest or the interests of the others that can be seen as detrimental to the company. oAvoiding interest confliction: a director’s duty is further mentioned as not placing his interests in front of the interests of the company. In other words there should not be any conflict regarding the director’s personal interests and the interests of the company. Some areas that can be seen as potentially conflicting between the interests of the company and the directors are: oDirect or indirect transaction of the director with the company oDiverging the company’s business to himself or to the third parties oConfliction of the duties by the way of holding multiple directorships in two or more companies
8 CORPORATIONS LAW oBy being a nominee director oExercising skill, care and diligence in the management of the company oDuty to be not misusing power and information of the company for his personal interest or the interest of any other person (Koh, 2013). The consequences of the breach of the duties of a director have been found to be discussed as follows: Under the section 8A (8) of the Act a director would be held liable for imprisonment of 2 years and fine of $20,000 or both for hiding the affairs of the company to law Under section 8D (1) a director would be fined with upto $10,000 or 2 years imprisonment or both for the falsification or destroying of documents of the company Section 157 provides for a fine of $5,000, 1 year imprisonment and liability of damage for breach of duty of the director in acting with honesty and diligence for the company’s best interest. Under section 175 (4) a director attracts $5,000 fine and default penalty for the failure of holding AGM. Under section 197 (7) director attracts $5,000fine and default penalty for the failure to file AR. Section 401 (2) provides for 2 years imprisonment and $50,000 fine or both for knowingly preparing or allowing to prepare the misleading information of returns (SME Portal, 2019)`
9 CORPORATIONS LAW References: Chan, G.K., 2015. Prospective Overruling in Singapore: A Judicial Framework for the Future?. InComparing the Prospective Effect of Judicial Rulings Across Jurisdictions(pp. 359-380). Springer, Cham. Douglas, M., 2019. Judges' Scholarly Writing as a Source of Common Law. Fordham, M., 2016. Contributory Negligence and Apportionment.Sing. J. Legal Stud., p.183. Harding, A. and Hien, B., 2017. Law and Regional Development in ASEAN: A Singapore Perspective. Hunter, H., 2017. Modern Law of Contracts. Hwang, M., 2018. The Future of Arbitration in Singapore.Sing. Comp. L. Rev., p.123. Koh, P., 2013. Punishment and protection-The disqualification of directors in Singapore.Sing. J. Legal Stud., p.447. Singapore Companies Act 2006 Siyuan, C. and Han, E.C.H., 2018.Civil procedure in Singapore. Kluwer Law International BV. SME Portal. (2019). Directors’ Duties and Responsibilities for Singapore Companies: How to be anEffectiveDirector|SMEPortal.Retrievedfrom https://www.smeportal.sg/content/smeportal/en/bizguides/legal/2015/directors-duties-and- responsibilities-for-singapore-companies.html