Should the actual controller of the company be jointly and severally liable for the company's debts?

Date:2022-05-24 09:52:38  Views:267

The current "Company Law" and judicial interpretations stipulate the liability of the actual controller in five cases, including damage caused by the use of affiliated relationships, malicious disposal of company property, failure to perform liquidation responsibilities in a timely manner, malicious cancellation, and assistance in withdrawing capital contributions. In practice, the actual controllers have various ways to abuse their rights, and the above-mentioned legal provisions alone are not enough to deal with them. 

 

According to Article 216 of the Company Law, the actual controller refers to a person who, although not a shareholder of the company, can actually control the behavior of the company through investment relationships, agreements or other arrangements. It can be seen from the definition that the actual controller of the company and the controlling shareholder are not completely equal. The actual controller is often not named in the industrial and commercial registration, articles of association and shareholder register, nor is it directly reflected in the corporate governance and management structure, but can practically governs corporate behavior in a variety of ways. Because the actual controller's control over the company is similar to that of the controlling shareholder, once the actual controller abuses his rights, it may also cause damage to the company's creditors, so his behavior should also be regulated by law.

 

From the point of view of practical case judgment, although the legislation does not clearly stipulate that the actual controller who abuses his rights bears joint and several liability for the company's debts, this does not constitute an obstacle to the actual prosecution of the actual controller's responsibility. The key to such cases is how to identify the actual controller, and how to find out the fact that the actual controller abuses the dominant position, the court usually makes a comprehensive judgment from the three aspects of personnel, business and finance, focusing on finding out whether there is a relationship between the abuse of evasion of debt and the damage to the interests of creditors. The core is property conflation, that is, whether the actual controller has the transfer of assets and the transfer of unfair interests with the company. From this point of view, the case of abuse of dominant position by the actual controller can also be learned from the case of abuse of dominant position by shareholders.