In companies both large and small, relationships between shareholders and directors can and do run into difficulty occasionally. When that happens, you have several remedies to choose from in the Companies Act. One of them, “relief from oppressive or prejudicial conduct” is particularly versatile, with courts empowered to order a wide range of remedial action ranging from share transfers to removal of directors, liquidation or business rescue of the company, and much more.
Indeed, a court may make any order “it deems fit” – but before you get there, you must first prove one of three specified categories of oppressive/prejudicial conduct. To illustrate, we discuss a Supreme Court of Appeal case involving a bitter dispute between a majority shareholder and a dismissed director.
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