Research Handbook on Directors' Duties (Research Handbooks in Corporate Law and Governance series)(Elgar Original reference)

THOROUGH RESEARCH ON THE ROLE AND CONDUCT OF COMPANY DIRECTORSAn appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green ChambersIt was Edward Elgar Publishing that originally contacted Adolfo Paolini to produce and the edit this book. As one of the latest titles in Elgar’s ‘Research Handbooks in Corporate Law and Governance’ series, it makes any number of statements, erudite and bold in more or less equal measure, about the role and conduct of company directors and to whom they are actually accountable and why – and why not.The topic is examined from a number of viewpoints and should be of direct interest not just to lawyers but to the public at large, bemused for example, by the corporate antics of banks and other corporate entities which in recent years have been featured in the media for a number of reasons, good and bad.A Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law at the University of Buckingham and consultant to a top City law firm,Dr. Paolini leads a team of leading academics, mainly from leading university law schools around the world. Demonstrating high standards of scholarship and trenchant comment, most of these folk are certainly not bashful about expressing their views, or substantiating them.In his rather hard-hitting introduction Paolini expresses the view that company directors owe what might be called a duty of care, not just to shareholders (the traditional view), but to society as a whole.Referring, we believe, to the Northern Rock scandal of a few years back, and the queues of ‘the bank’s customers wanting to recover ‘the fruit of their labour, their life savings, their pensions and the like’, Paolini argues that those who suffered the effect of the company’s financial distress were not only shareholders, but society at large.Another contributor, Jeff MacIntosh -- a Professor of Law at the University of Toronto plus the holder of an astounding array of high powered qualifications in academia and finance -- is of the opinion that ‘the issue of to whom directors’ duties are owed is… the most important issue in corporate law.’ ‘It defines the end or purpose of corporate existence,’ he adds ‘and thus delineates the function that we wish corporations to play in our society.’Lawyer, academic or not, you may well be concerned and possibly affected by many of the issues of corporate governance discussed in this book which is divided into four parts.Parts I and II discuss approaches to directorship, respectively under the common law and under civil law. The general drift of the argument is that human rights and consumer rights ‘have to be protected and most importantly respected’ as part of the duty of a director.And moving on, Part IV discusses the liabilities and consequences that may arise in the face of company insolvency. The title of contributor Michelle M. Harmer’s article ‘Navigating financial turbulence: directors’ duties in the face of insolvency’ -- just about says it all.If you are professionally involved in, or merely interested in the financial services industry and its collective stance on such issues as social responsibility as well as profit, you should really acquire this absorbing, carefully researched and very timely book.The publication date is cited as at 2014.