‘At the forefront of the test I think I have to go on to consider by way of further analysis both what Millett J meant by ‘functions properly discharged only by a director’, and Mr Lloyd QC meant by ‘on an equal footing’. As to one it seems to me clear that this cannot be limited simply to statutory functions and to my mind it would mean and include any one or more of the following: directing others, putting it very compendiously, committing the company to major obligations, and thirdly (really I think what we are concerned with here) taking part in an equally based collective decision process at board level, i.e. at the level of a director in effect with a foot in the board room. As to Mr Lloyd’s test, I think it is very much on the lines of that third test to which I have just referred. It is not, I think, in any way a question of equality of power but equality of ability to participate in the notional board room. Is he somebody who is simply advising and, as it were, withdrawing having advised, or somebody who joins the other directors, de facto or de jure, in decisions which affect the future of the company?’
Judges:
Judge Cooke
Citations:
Unreported 16 January 1997
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Re Hydrodam (Corby) Ltd 1994
Millett J described a de facto director as: ‘a person who assumes to act as a director. He is held out as a director by the company, claims and purports to be a director, although never actually or validly appointed as such. To establish that a . .
Cited by:
Approved – Secretary of State for Trade and Industry v Tjolle and Others ChD 9-May-1997
Delay and the probable short period of disqualification are proper reasons for Secretary of State to consider discontinuing proceedings. As to whether a person ‘assumes to act as a director’: ‘It may be difficult to postulate any one decisive test. . .
Cited – Ultraframe (UK) Ltd v Fielding and others ChD 27-Jul-2005
The parties had engaged in a bitter 95 day trial in which allegations of forgery, theft, false accounting, blackmail and arson. A company owning patents and other rights had become insolvent, and the real concern was the destination and ownership of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Company
Updated: 07 December 2022; Ref: scu.230269