Company Directors: Regulating Conflicts of Interest and Formulating a Statement of Duties

Current project status

• Initiation: Could include discussing scope and terms of reference with lead Government Department
• Pre-consultation: Could include approaching interest groups and specialists, producing scoping and issues papers, finalising terms of project
• Consultation: Likely to include consultation events and paper, making provisional proposals for comment
• Policy development: Will include analysis of consultation responses. Could include further issues papers and consultation on draft Bill
• Reported: Usually recommendations for law reform but can be advice to government, scoping report or other recommendations

This project is complete. Our recommendations have been implemented

In this project we:

• reviewed Part X of the Companies Act 1985, with a view to considering how the provisions could be simplified and modernised, and
• considered the case for a statutory statement of the duties owed by directors to their company under the general law, including their fiduciary duties and their duty of care.

This project was informed by a report on the duties of company directors from the ESRC Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.

This was a joint project with the Scottish Law Commission.