Wading Through the Thicket, Stemming Abuses Essay

Wading Through the Thicket, Stemming Abuses - Essay Example In theory, a director, holding as he does a position of trust, is a fiduciary of the corporation . As such, in cases of conflict of his interest with those of the corporation, he cannot sacrifice the latter without incurring liability for his disloyal act. The fiduciary duty has many ramifications, and the possible conflict of interest situations are almost limitless, each possibility posing different problems. There will be cases where a breach of trust is clear, as where a director converts for his own use funds or property belonging to the corporation, or accepts material benefits for exercising his powers in favor of someone seeking to do business with the corporation.  In many other cases, however, the line of demarcation between the fiduciary relationship and a director’s personal right is not easy to define. The law has attempted at least to lay down general rules of conduct and although these serve as guidelines for directors to follow, the determination as to whethe r in a given case the duty of loyalty has been violated has ultimately to be decided by the court on the case’s own merits.   What is clear, however, is that shareholder conflicts are prevalent in virtually all jurisdictions and the law has to formulate appropriate channels of redress in order to resolve these conflicts. As Miller   said: There is no surfeit of examples to demonstrate how minority shareholders and their interests can be prejudiced by the director or those with controlling interests in the corporation.