The Company Director’s Liability for Untrue Statements

• Authors: Leonid Tolstov , Janno Lahe
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In the modern information society the success or failure of a person participating in activities related to legal issues depends increasingly more on the relevance and correctness of available information and this is why higher demands are put on giving out information. In the context of company law it is evident that although the company is always liable for the information issued, in reality it is not the legal person giving out information, but its legal representative (the director) instead. Therefore, it would be reasonable to ask whether the director could simply hide behind the company; or, should the director also be held personally liable for disclosing untrue statements? The aim of this article is, on the basis of English, German, Spanish and Estonian law, to analyze if and in which cases a director can be held personally liable for disclosing false information to a third party in the name of a company and what the optimal standard of a directors’ liability for disclosing false information could be. The liability of the company itself is not the current article’s object of the research.

Keywords

EN

Director’s liability; tort liability; untrue statements; precontractual negotiations; statutory duty

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Baltic Journal of Law & Politics
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 70-96

Dates

published

2014-06-01

received

2014-02-10

accepted

2014-05-15

online

2014-10-08

Contributors

author

Leonid Tolstov

• Candidate University of Tartu, Faculty of Law (Estonia) Contact information Address: Roosi 28-2, 51009 Tartu, Estonia

author

Janno Lahe

• Associated Professor of Civil Law; Dr. iur. University of Tartu, Faculty of Law (Estonia) Contact information Address: Näituse 20, 50409 Tartu, Estonia

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/bjlp-2014-0005