Where a company is ordered not to do certain acts or gives an undertaking to the like effect and a director of that company is aware of the order or undertaking he is under a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that the order or undertaking is obeyed, and that if he wilfully fails to take those steps and the order or undertaking is breached he can be punished for contempt. It is his own culpable conduct which exposes him to that liability.
Woolf LJ said: ‘In our view where a company is ordered not to do certain acts or gives an undertaking to like effect and a director of that company is aware of that order or undertaking he is under a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that the order or undertaking is obeyed, and if he wilfully fails to take those steps and the order or undertaking is breached he can be punished for contempt. We use the word ‘wilful’ to distinguish the situation where the director can reasonably believe some other director or officer is taking those steps.’
Judges:
Woolf LJ
Citations:
[1990] 1 WLR 926
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Beggs v Scottish Ministers HL 7-Feb-2007
The claimant, a serving prisoner, had sought to sue the prison authorities for the conditions in which he was kept. He complained that his correspondence with his lawyers had been unlwafully opened by the prison. Repeatedly, undertakings were given . .
Cited – Sectorguard Plc v Dienne Plc ChD 3-Nov-2009
The claimant alleged misuse of confidential information in the form of its customer list, and its charges to them. The defendant company was run by former employees of the claimant. A later allegation was made of accessing the defendant’s private . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contempt of Court, Company
Updated: 23 June 2022; Ref: scu.248817