9月12日 12:02 H1 Pro录音
9月12日 12:02 H1 Pro录音
说话人1 00:00
If you found canvas after class today, i'm gonna post my consultation hours. So if you want to send me an email and by the time, we probably not now, but later this semester right now, I think we're just getting settled in. But whenever you need help, that will be a good way to reach me the other, but good way to reach me. And maybe the best way to reach me is through canvas in box. So then everything kind of associated with this course is altogether. And that's fine. Again, your first line of attack, if any of you get sick and you have an emergency, whether now or at the time of the exam is to contact both me and our general office staff for your program.
如果你今天下课后找到了 Canvas,我将发布我的咨询时间。所以,如果你想给我发一封电子邮件,到时候,我们可能不是现在,但本学期晚些时候,我认为我们才刚刚适应。但是,无论何时你需要帮助,那将是联系我的好方法,但也是联系我的好方法。也许最好的方式是通过盒子里的画布。因此,与本课程相关的一切都完全是。这很好。同样,如果你们中的任何人生病并且有紧急情况,无论是现在还是在考试时,您的第一道攻击是联系我和我们计划的总办公室工作人员。
So just bear that in mind. If it's anything related to tutorials, can you start with your tutorials? Instructor? That's the best in there? We're gonna start out with a little bit of our review today of what we did last week. So for this, i'm not sure how many of you have used. Do you reply before? Anyway, you reply. It's like a kind of dated version of ventimeter. If you haven't used it, get out your phone, you can scan this qr code, and it'll ask you to enter a session number if you go to the website and enter that way, none of you have used your reply. This was invented during covet by somebody at cuhk for like everybody in hong kong to use. So it's free. We have it. It's kind of useful.
所以请记住这一点。如果与教程有关,您能从您的教程开始吗?教练?那是最好的吗?我们今天将对上周所做的工作进行一些回顾。所以对于这个,我不确定你们中有多少人使用了。您之前回复过吗?不管怎样,你回答。它就像一种过时的 ventimeter 版本。如果你还没用过,拿出你的手机,你可以扫描这个二维码,如果你去网站输入,它会要求你输入一个会话号,你们都没有使用过你的回复。这是 CUHK 的某个人在 quest 期间发明的,就像香港的每个人都可以使用一样。所以它是免费的。我们拥有它。这有点有用。
Anyway, we're gonna start with a little bit of a revision here. And at the bottom, you can kind of see how many people are logged in, and then how many people responded. And I there's not unlimited time, but we're just gonna get started with this. So let me start here. This is not really actually where I wanted to start here. Why
无论如何,我们将从这里的一点修订开始。在底部,你可以看到有多少人登录,然后有多少人做出了回应。我没有无限的时间,但我们只是要从这个开始。所以让我从这里开始。这实际上并不是我想从这里开始的地方。为什么
说话人2 01:46
are we going back? This is not
我们要回去吗?这不是
说话人1 01:49
for a second.
一秒钟。
Let us try this question. Are you guys seeing question three or question one? Question three? Let's try that one. And then we'll see how we do, which of the following is prima fascia evidence that a partnership exists a joint decision making. B both parties have funded the business. C parties have joint tendency and property. D parties have each received a share of the profits of the venture, which the following is prima fascia evidence that a partnership exists.
让我们试试这个问题。你们看到的是问题 3 还是问题 1?问题三?让我们试试那个。然后,我们将看到我们是如何做的,以下哪一项是存在伙伴关系的初步证据,即共同决策。B 双方都为业务提供了资金。C 方具有共同倾向和财产。D 方各自获得了企业利润的一部分,以下是存在合伙企业的初步证据。
说话人2 02:21
Do you?
是吗?
说话人1 02:43
I'm gonna give you about five more seconds. So for those of you who are just coming in catch up with us in a minute, you can scan the qr code and join us next time, but let's see what we've got here.
我再给你大约 5 秒钟的时间。因此,对于那些刚赶上我们的人,您可以扫描二维码并下次加入我们,但让我们看看我们这里有什么。
543, 21. We're gonna go with 2/3 response right here. Okay? D is the correct answer. So well done to the 41 of you who picked d this is from the partnership ordinance, know that the wording is parties have received a share of the profits like something happened in the real world.
543, 21.我们将在这里进行 2/3 的响应。好?D 是正确答案。你们 41 人做得太好了,他们从合伙条例中挑选了这个,要知道措辞是各方已经获得了一部分利润,就像现实世界中发生的事情一样。
There's other ways to establish a partnership, in our case, law that gave us some factors for that. In fact, all of the things on here might be useful in establishing whether a partnership has emerged, except for maybe c encourage you look at the partnership ordinance on that. But this is kind of a good practice. Let me see here what it's gonna give me that. Good. Next. This is very strange. It is remember the quiz, but all right, we're going back to one now. Question one, i've got two more of these. Number one. What is the primary disadvantage of the partnership form? Again, same qr code, a flexibility, b profit and loss sharing. C joined in several liability for partnership liabilities or d default majority decision rule.
还有其他方法可以建立合作伙伴关系,在我们的案例中,法律为我们提供了一些因素。事实上,这里的所有内容都可能有助于确定是否出现了合伙企业,除了可能 c 鼓励您查看这方面的合伙条例。但这是一种很好的做法。让我看看它会给我带来什么。好。下一个。这很奇怪。记住测验,但好吧,我们现在回到一个。问题一,我还有两个问题。第一。合伙形式的主要缺点是什么?同样,相同的二维码,a 灵活性,b 盈亏共享。C 加入了多项合伙责任责任或 d 违约多数决定规则。
Again, if you're just coming in to scan the qr code, 25 % chance of getting it right here, primary disadvantage of the partnership
同样,如果您只是来扫描二维码,有 25% 的机会在这里找到它,这是合作伙伴关系的主要缺点
说话人2 04:20
form.
形式。
说话人1 04:38
It looks like we're stuck right around 70 of you. So take a couple more seconds, 543, 21. Excellent. We got here. Good. I thought that all of you saw that a is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Partnership form is very flexible. You can form one without knowing that you're forming one. In fact, until you sat through this class, you might not have thought about that. Profit and loss sharing it. You don't know whether it's an advantage or a disadvantage. It kind of depends. Doesn't it? Right? Okay? C is the big one. In fact, c is the major reason why you may have discussed in tutorial, why a partnership might not be advantageous for your client unless they have good insurance or some kind of other structure that protects them.
看起来我们被困在你们的 70 人左右。所以再花几秒钟,543, 21。非常好。我们到了这里。好。我认为你们所有人都看到了 a 是一个优势,而不是一个劣势。合伙形式非常灵活。您可以在不知道您正在形成一个的情况下形成一个。事实上,在您参加这门课之前,您可能没有考虑过这一点。盈亏共享。你不知道这是优点还是缺点。这有点看情况。不是吗?右?好?C 是最大的。事实上,c 是您可能在教程中讨论的主要原因,为什么除非他们有良好的保险或某种其他保护他们的结构,否则合作伙伴关系可能对您的客户没有好处。
C joint and several liability for partnership. Liabilities is provided by statute. It is not one of the areas that is a default rule. And you can contract around by being a partnership. This is what happens. That's the main disadvantage. A default rule is not too bad, because a default rule means you can do what? You can change it, right? You don't like the rule. Change it. You want a different voting. That's fine, but the default rule won't work as well for certain types of partnerships. And again, if you don't like that rule, you'll need to change it. Let's go on to the last one here. Question two, which vehicle should I use to insulate myself from liabilities? And here we mean a business vehicle, a sole proprietorship, b partnership, c company, or d joint venture. Hopefully this is an easy one for all of us now, and we're gonna use the same qr code, which vehicle is the best one to insulate yourself from liability. Let's see how fast you are. This was meant to me to investment like all the news faster for partnership company or a joint venture.
C 合伙企业的连带责任。责任由法规规定。它不是默认规则的区域之一。您可以通过成为合作伙伴来签订合同。这就是发生的事情。这是主要的缺点。默认规则还不错,因为默认规则意味着你可以做什么?你可以改变它,对吧?你不喜欢这个规则。改变它。你想要一个不同的投票。这很好,但默认规则不适用于某些类型的合作伙伴关系。再说一次,如果你不喜欢这条规则,你需要改变它。让我们继续讨论最后一个。问题二,我应该使用哪种工具来避免责任?这里我们指的是商业工具、独资企业、b 合伙企业、c 公司或 d 合资企业。希望这对我们所有人来说都很容易,我们将使用相同的二维码,哪辆车是最好的,可以免于承担责任。让我们看看你的速度有多快。这对我来说意味着投资,就像所有新闻一样,更快地为合伙公司或合资企业。
I'm gonna cut us off here, see what we got, excellent company, which is the business form we're gonna talk about today.
我在这里打断我们,看看我们得到了什么,优秀的公司,这就是我们今天要讨论的商业形式。
One of the great benefits of incorporation and one of the features of modern corporations, although you may seem to be surprised to learn not companies when they were first invented. This is a feature that was added later around the 1800s, but it is now one of the core features of the corporate form.
公司注册的一大好处和现代公司的特点之一,尽管您似乎会惊讶地发现 Not Companies 刚发明时。这是后来在 1800 年代左右添加的功能,但现在它是公司形式的核心功能之一。
And as we just saw, it's very different from the partnership form. Hopefully, you all discussed this in tutorial last week. Partnership and partnership are these kind of forms that can emerge if you just go out and start doing things in the world, that's not a way to insulate yourself from liability. And a joint venture is not a formal business structure. In fact, it can take any of these forms other than a sole proprietorship. So we need to know what it is. And for some reason, again, our system is being switched off. So i'm gonna keep talking while it figures out what it's doing, and then it will no doubt restart. Thankfully, our quiz is done. So well done to all of you who picked c you can follow along in your power points while the system is deciding what to do here. And i'm gonna continue, but today we're gonna be talking about senior.
正如我们刚才看到的,它与合作形式非常不同。希望你们都在上周的教程中讨论过这个问题。伙伴关系和伙伴关系就是这种形式,如果你只是走出去,开始在世界上做事,就会出现,这不是一种让自己免于责任的方式。合资企业不是一种正式的业务结构。事实上,它可以采取除独资企业以外的任何这些形式。所以我们需要知道它是什么。出于某种原因,我们的系统再次被关闭。所以我会继续讨论,让它弄清楚自己在做什么,然后它肯定会重启。值得庆幸的是,我们的测验已经完成。所有选择 c 的人都干得好,当系统决定在这里做什么时,您可以跟随您的 power point。我将继续,但今天我们要讨论老年人。
Now it's warming up, so it will come back on its own. That's good to know. I guess maybe like all of us, this is not a good time for this classroom. Do all of you feel this is like a terrible time for class? Like 12 to 2, like you're either hungry, or you've just been rushing through this whole crowd of people in the cafeterias. Anyway, it's just very stressful. Today's topic is super important. We're gonna talk a little bit about the incorporation process, which is basically this slide. And you'll be looking at that for your tutorial next week. But most importantly, we're gonna talk about one of the most fundamental principles of corporate law, which is, again, this notion of the separate legal personality of the company. And it is literally one of the most basic topics in this course, but it is one that has very far reaching real world implications. And I will submit to you, it has something to do with climate change.
现在它正在变暖,所以它会自己回来。很高兴知道。我想也许和我们所有人一样,现在不是这个课堂的好时机。你们都觉得这就像一个糟糕的上课时间吗?就像 12 比 2,就像你要么饿了,要么你刚刚匆匆忙忙地穿过自助餐厅的一大群人。总之,这真的很有压力。今天的话题非常重要。我们将讨论一下公司注册过程,基本上就是这张幻灯片。您将在下周的教程中查看该内容。但最重要的是,我们要讨论公司法最基本的原则之一,即公司独立法人资格的概念。它实际上是本课程中最基本的主题之一,但它对现实世界具有非常深远的影响。我要告诉你,这与气候变化有关。
So again, many of the problems facing our world today, like are kind of caused by some form of technology gone wrong. In some sense, these are all really good things that can also do great, amazing things in the world, and the corporate form is one of them. So that's kind of my take on this. It is amazing, and it has power to do phenomenal things. And when you go into the world of legal practice will discover it has amazing flexibility and can contribute extensively to innovation in an amazing way. But it also can produce or at least facilitate some substantial harms if it's abused. And we're gonna talk about what the law does about that today as well. Okay. So just very briefly, the process of incorporation is established in the company's ordinance and a couple of provisions that are on the slide here.
所以,我们当今世界面临的许多问题,比如说是由某种形式的技术出错引起的。从某种意义上说,这些都是非常好的事物,也可以在世界上做出伟大、惊人的事情,企业形式就是其中之一。这就是我对此的看法。它太神奇了,它有能力做非凡的事情。当您进入法律实践世界时,会发现它具有惊人的灵活性,并且可以以惊人的方式为创新做出广泛贡献。但是,如果滥用,它也可能产生或至少促进一些实质性的伤害。我们今天也将讨论法律对此有何作用。好。所以,简单来说,公司注册程序是在公司条例和这里幻灯片上的一些条款中确定的。
We learned last week that there is a general business registration ordinance. If you don't follow that, you can be penalized by just operating without filing, because we want the public to know that you're trying to be a business. Okay? So leaving that aside in the company's ordinance, we have several other provisions as well. So 67 tells us that we can form a company by filing and registration, and then we will be issued a certificate of incorporation upon registration. And you'll be asked next week to think about the information that you can find right here in section 73. What's the effect of that? Once I do those things and I get my certificate of incorporation, what is the result here? There's a couple of things that happen. Number one is that the members of this business become officially the members, or we will also say shareholders of this corporation. And those two terms mean essentially the same thing. Uk and hong kong systems use the term members for the participants in a corporation.
我们上周了解到,有一项通用商业登记条例。如果您不遵守这一点,您可能会因为不申报而经营而受到处罚,因为我们希望公众知道您正在努力成为一家企业。好?因此,撇开公司条例中的这一点不谈,我们还有其他几项规定。所以 67 告诉我们,我们可以通过备案和注册来成立公司,然后我们将在注册时获得公司注册证书。下周将要求您考虑您可以在 Section 73 中找到的信息。那有什么影响呢?一旦我做了这些事情并获得了公司注册证书,结果会是什么?有几件事发生了。第一是这个企业的成员正式成为成员,或者我们也可以说是这个公司的股东。这两个术语的含义本质上是一样的。英国和香港系统使用术语 Members 来表示公司的参与者。
Secondly, this entity now becomes a quote, body corporate. That means a separate legal person. And I are natural persons. The corporation is a legal person, and it has been born as of the date of incorporation. Number two, which is what we're gonna explore. Now the body corporate is capable of exercising all of the functions of an incorporated entity, and can exercise all of the provided powers under the statute as well.
其次,这个实体现在变成了一个报价,法人团体。这意味着一个独立的法人。而我是自然人。公司是法人,自成立之日起已成立。第二点,这就是我们要探索的内容。现在,法人团体能够行使法人实体的所有职能,也可以行使法规规定的所有权力。
Interestingly enough, corporations also can do something that natural persons cannot do, and that is they can live forever. None of us have perpetual succession or it eternal life in our physical form, as far as I know. So companies can outlive us. And in fact, they do, although we will be talking later about how companies conclude or wind up. And we've seen that a little bit already.
有趣的是,公司也可以做一些自然人做不到的事情,那就是他们可以长生不老。据我所知,我们没有人以我们的物理形式拥有永恒的继承或永恒的生命。因此,公司可以比我们活得更久。事实上,他们确实如此,尽管我们稍后将讨论公司如何结束或结束。我们已经看到了这一点。
I want to point out just on the side here with relation to this term member before we leave this slide, that there might be someone who is a shareholder, who is not a member. So we'll talk much more about this in cmb that person is called a beneficial owner. If any of you own investments. Again, this is like cmb topic. But if any of you own investments through some kind of an account, your name is not showing up anywhere, probably on the corporate register of this company, because that would be a big hassle for all of us involved who want to trade our shares in the modern world. We have a system that allows us to hold an economic interest to hold the shares and ownership interest in a company without actually being a member.
在我们离开这张幻灯片之前,我想在这里指出一下,关于“成员”一词,可能有人是股东,但不是成员。因此,我们将在 cmb 中更多地讨论这个人被称为受益所有人。如果你们中的任何人拥有投资。同样,这就像 cmb 主题。但是,如果你们中的任何人通过某种账户拥有投资,你的名字就不会出现在任何地方,可能在这家公司的公司登记册上,因为这对我们所有想在现代世界交易股票的人来说都是一个很大的麻烦。我们有一个系统,允许我们持有经济利益,在不实际成为成员的情况下持有公司的股份和所有者权益。
But what we're talking about right now is aa kind of full ownership package where you have the shares of the company, but you also have the governance rights directly in that company. And your name appears on the corporate register. If later you want to draw a little venn diagram, you can figure out the relationship there. So all members are shareholders, but not all shareholders are members.
但我们现在谈论的是一种完全所有权包,你拥有公司的股份,但你也直接拥有该公司的治理权。您的名字会出现在公司登记册上。如果以后你想画一个小维恩图,你可以在那里弄清楚关系。所以所有成员都是股东,但并非所有股东都是成员。
That but again, we'll talk much more about that. In seven b here's kind of the structure, one of the big effects of this. Let me just go back to kind of how we form the company. We mentioned shares. Shares are kind of a piece of the ownership interests of the company, aa kind of a property interest in the economic value of that company. But they do not mean that you actually own the assets of the company, because again, the company is a separate legal person. And one of the great things about that is it can own its own property in its own name. We've got the box of the corporation here in blue. And the way that often a company is formed is that the member or the future member will contribute something to the company, cash, maybe some other kind of assets in exchange for shares. K and m here represent the members of the company, and there's a little box around them, but that's kind of just informal. So we can keep together that they are both members. And there's a little green circle here under kay, showing that kay is an individual like you and me that has their own assets, their own property.
但同样,我们将对此进行更多讨论。在 7 b 中,这是一种结构,这是它的一大影响。让我回到我们是如何组建公司的。我们提到了股票。股票是公司所有者权益的一部分,是该公司经济价值中的一种财产权益。但它们并不意味着您实际上拥有公司的资产,因为同样,公司是一个独立的法人。这样做的一大好处是,它可以以自己的名义拥有自己的财产。我们这里有蓝色的公司盒子。公司成立的方式通常是成员或未来的成员为公司贡献一些东西、现金,也许是其他类型的资产来换取股票。这里的 K 和 m 代表公司的成员,他们周围有一个小框,但这只是非正式的。因此,我们可以保持他们都是成员。kay 下面有一个绿色的小圆圈,表明 kay 是像你我一样的人,他们有自己的资产,自己的财产。
We could do the same for m but just to keep it straight, kay owns kay's asset Sets. And the red little shape on the left stands for a creditor of k okay? And down at the far right, we have another red figure that represents the creditors of the company. One of the implications of forming a company is that those two creditors can only claim against the person that they have a debtor creditor relationship with. Our starting point is that another impact of being a separate legal person is that the creditors of the company down in the right can only assert their claim against the corporation itself. And the creditors of k up at the top can only go after the green pool of assets, k's assets. They can't go after the corporation's assets, because those are two separate legal persons. So that's one of the consequences of forming a company.
我们可以对 m 执行相同的操作,但为了保持直率,kay 拥有 kay 的资产 Set。左边的红色小形状代表 k 的债权人,好吗?在最右侧,我们还有另一个代表公司债权人的红色数字。成立公司的影响之一是这两个债权人只能向他们有债务债权人关系的人索赔。我们的出发点是,成为独立法人的另一个影响是,公司以下的债权人只能对公司本身提出索赔。而 k 在顶部的债权人只能追逐绿色资产池,即 k 的资产。他们不能追查公司的资产,因为那是两个独立的法人。所以这就是成立公司的后果之一。
Now kay may have transferred some of those assets to the corporation in exchange for shares. That means that there's some value now in that corporation, and it's that value against which the creditors of the company can claim. You guys see how this works is everything is kind of in its own separate box. Okay. For tutorial, i'll let you read the textbook material on the details of how you form a company. What's the process of contributing to you investment in the company and what we call subscribing for shares, which is applying for share ownership, share subscription. So i'll let you look at that in a little bit more detail on your own. Okay. Another important concept starting out is to understand what are the key features of a company. I'm sure if I ask any of you to describe, what does it mean to be human to somebody not from this planet that's coming to visit and try to find out what are humans like.
现在,Kay 可能已经将其中一些资产转让给了公司以换取股票。这意味着该公司现在有一定的价值,公司的债权人可以据此要求。你们明白这是如何工作的,所有东西都在自己的独立盒子里。好。对于教程,我将让您阅读有关如何组建公司的细节的教科书材料。为你贡献投资公司的过程是怎样的,我们叫认购股票,也就是申请股票所有权,股票认购。因此,我将让您自己更详细地了解一下。好。另一个重要的概念是了解公司的主要特征是什么。我敢肯定,如果我让你们中的任何一个人描述一下,对于一个不是来自这个星球的人来说,作为人类意味着什么,他们来参观并试图找出人类是什么样的。
Now all of us might answer something a little bit different. But if we worked hard enough, maybe we can come up with some kind of core features of what it means to be a human being. Similarly, we've got some core features of what it means to be a legal person, and in particular, a corporation as distinct from a partnership.
现在我们所有人的回答可能会有点不同。但是,如果我们足够努力,也许我们可以想出作为人类意味着什么的某种核心特征。同样,我们有一些关于法人的核心特征,特别是不同于合伙企业的公司。
You might think about how does this list of features that I have today differ from the list that we might make for a partnership? Or a sole proprietorship. I'll leave that to you to think about.
您可能会想,我今天拥有的这个功能列表与我们可能为合作伙伴关系列出的列表有何不同?或者独资企业。我把这个问题留给你考虑。
But this is some of the key features that scholars are typically put together when they think about describing what's a corporation. Number one, we've talked about separate legal personality. Again, that means that the corporation can own its own property and make its own contracts, incur its own debts. Sue would be sued in its own name. Second limited liability, which we just discussed this kind of separation of assets. Number three, an implication of this, and really a separate feature is the transferability of shareholders interests. So if I sell my shares to you, I stopped being a shareholder and member of the corporation and you become a shareholder
但这是学者们在考虑描述什么是公司时通常放在一起的一些关键特征。首先,我们已经讨论了单独的法人资格。同样,这意味着公司可以拥有自己的财产并签订自己的合同,承担自己的债务。Sue 将以自己的名义被起诉。第二种有限责任,我们刚刚讨论了这种资产分离。第三,这的含义,实际上是一个单独的特征,是股东利益的可转让性。因此,如果我把我的股份卖给你,我就不再是公司的股东和成员,而你成为股东
说话人2 17:48
and member of the corporation.
和公司成员。
说话人1 17:49
Okay? Again, consider what that answer is in partnership. If the partnership participants change, the partnership
好?同样,考虑一下合作的答案是什么。如果合作伙伴关系参与者发生更改,则合作伙伴关系
说话人2 18:00
changes,
变化
说话人1 18:01
the relationship is completely different. And indeed, we have a different partnership altogether. That's why there are special rules on what happens if somebody dies, because typically the partnership historically has been wound up. When we bring new people in, we're changing the partnership. Not. So with the corporation, again, the corporation keeps going. No matter if you and I transfer our shares amongst each other. So this is a much more flexible form in that sense. Number four, we said corporations live forever again, even if there's a change in the membership, in contrast to partnerships, where any change of the membership means you've got a different partnership.
这种关系完全不同。事实上,我们有一个完全不同的合作伙伴关系。这就是为什么对有人去世后会发生什么有特殊规定,因为历史上合伙企业通常已经结束。当我们引入新员工时,我们正在改变合作伙伴关系。不。因此,对于公司,公司再次继续前进。无论您和我是否相互转让我们的股份。所以从这个意义上说,这是一种更灵活的形式。第四,我们说,即使成员身份发生变化,公司也会永远存在,这与合伙企业相反,在合伙企业中,成员资格的任何变化都意味着你拥有了不同的合伙企业。
And lastly, when you pick a corporation, you can choose to form it anywhere. You can choose to form it in hong kong. And if you incorporate in hong kong, go and behold, our corporation is a hong kong legal person. If you incorporate in the cayman islands, lo and behold, our corporation is not a hong kong legal person. It is a cayman island legal person, or the uk or whatever. And by doing that, you are picking the corporate law that will govern the internal affairs of the corporation. In other words, the governance rules that you will are bound by.
最后,当您选择一家公司时,您可以选择在任何地方成立它。您可以选择在香港成立。如果您在香港注册成立,请看,我们公司是香港法人。如果您在开曼群岛注册成立,瞧,我们的公司不是香港法人。它是开曼群岛的法人,或者英国或其他什么。通过这样做,您选择了将管理公司内部事务的公司法。换句话说,您将受其约束的治理规则。
And we'll talk more in the next topic five about what those are. But you are picking a choice of law and you can do that consciously. I don't know how many of us got to pick where we were born. So companies can not only live forever, but they get to pick where they're born. And by picking where they're born, they intentionally pick the law that applies to them. We'll come back to that in some of our later discussions. What are some of the great things about limited liability? Because today our focus is really gonna be on the first two features. We'll talk in smba lot about number three, how we transfer shares, economic interests, how you invest in companies, all of that stuff. Okay? But today we're gonna be focusing on separate legal personality and limited liabilities. So first of all, there are some advantages of limited liability that make the company a really amazing vehicle for producing big things in the world.
我们将在下一个主题 5 中详细讨论这些是什么。但你正在选择法律,你可以有意识地这样做。我不知道我们中有多少人可以选择我们出生的地方。因此,公司不仅可以长生不老,还可以选择自己的出生地。通过选择他们的出生地,他们有意选择适用于他们的法律。我们将在后面的一些讨论中回到这个问题。有限责任公司有哪些优点?因为今天我们的重点将真正放在前两个功能上。我们将在 smba 中讨论很多关于第三点、我们如何转让股票、经济利益、如何投资公司等等。好?但今天我们将重点介绍独立的法人资格和有限责任。首先,有限责任公司有一些优势,使该公司成为在世界上生产大件产品的真正令人惊叹的工具。
The first one is this notion of asset partitioning. That's what I meant by this slide. Partition means to divide. Asset partitioning means that the assets of k in the green box are separate from the assets of the corporation, represented either by the blue box or by the not a nice apartment building that we're holding down there. Okay? This is a way of encouraging investment because the creditor doesn't have to worry about what's going on with the risky activity of k and m they can just worry about what's the company doing, because that's the one that i've lent money to.
第一个是资产分区的概念。这就是我说这张幻灯片的意思。Partition 的意思是分割。资产分割意味着绿色框内 k 的资产与公司的资产是分开的,由蓝色框或我们在那里持有的不漂亮的公寓楼表示。好?这是一种鼓励投资的方式,因为债权人不必担心 k 和 m 的风险活动发生了什么,他们只需担心公司正在做什么,因为那是我借钱给的公司。
Okay, so those are the assets I need to pay attention to. So it's a little bit more efficient in that way. Secondly, relatively as I said, we've got distinct asset pools and partitioning of creditors claims. So I as an investor k or m as a real person putting money into this thing don't have to worry. At night whether the creditor of the company that I bought shares in is gonna come after me and take my car in my house. Okay, so this encourages me to put my money in the company. And if the rule were different, I might be worried about my car in my house and I might be very afraid of putting my money into evergreen.
好的,这些是我需要关注的资产。所以以这种方式效率更高一些。其次,相对而言,正如我所说,我们有不同的资产池和债权人债权的分割。因此,我作为投资者 k 或 m 作为真正的人,将资金投入到这件事上,不必担心。晚上,我购买股票的公司的债权人是否会来追赶我,把我的车开到我家里。好的,这鼓励我把钱投进公司。如果规则不同,我可能会担心我家里的车,我可能会非常害怕把我的钱投入 evergreen。
So again, limited liability can be helpful here. Number three, all of this together has been shown empirically by research to contribute to the formation of capital markets. It's all of us here in hong kong are sitting in one of the world's capital markets. We might have limited liability to think so. These are some of the advantages of the corporate form. And i'm gonna go a little bit more quickly now, because I want to hit some of the cases that you'll be looking at for your tutorial. But they're pretty straightforward. So i'm gonna move a little bit quickly. I do want you to look at them and read them, and especially this case, because of maybe all the cases in sma this is one of the most famous, because this is the case that established in common law, many of the principles we're talking about and look at the date on it.
因此,有限责任在这里可能会有所帮助。第三,研究已将所有这些结合在一起,有助于资本市场的形成。我们所有香港人都坐在世界资本市场之一。我们可能对此有有限责任。这些是公司形式的一些优势。我现在要快一点,因为我想介绍您将在教程中查看的一些情况。但它们非常简单。所以我要快点行动。我确实希望你看看它们,读一读,特别是这个案子,因为也许 sma 中的所有案例都是最著名的案例之一,因为这是在普通法中确立的案例,我们正在谈论的许多原则,看看上面的日期。
1897.
This is the time period when all of this was being figured out, and the courts and the legislatures were deciding what's the corporate form gonna be. Because before this, not much before this, most corporations were like the east india company, which came to asia, because they got a charter from the king, which is a contract that says you have the right to go do all these business activities. I'm not gonna give you the right to go do other things that the dutch east india company is authorized to do, because their king gave them a different contract. Okay? That's the way corporations used to work. But now we have a different structure. Solomon versus solomon is a case involving a sole proprietorship, which we've talked about or what we might call a one man company. And he ran a business, but then he wanted to incorporate it, and he incorporate the company with himself and other family members as the members of the company.
这是所有这一切被弄清楚的时期,法院和立法机构正在决定公司的形式是什么。因为在此之前,不久之前,大多数公司都像东印度公司一样,来到亚洲,因为他们从国王那里获得了特许状,这是一份合同,规定您有权去做所有这些商业活动。我不会给你去做荷兰东印度公司有权做的其他事情的权利,因为他们的国王给了他们一份不同的合同。好?这就是公司过去的工作方式。但现在我们有一个不同的结构。所罗门与所罗门案是一个涉及独资企业的案件,我们已经讨论过,或者我们可以称之为一人公司。他经营一家企业,但后来他想合并它,他将公司与自己和其他家庭成员合并为公司的成员。
You can see how he did this, basically what he did. And this is useful for tutorial is he took all the assets that he personally had as a sole proprietor and transfer them to the box, solomon company in exchange for a bunch of things. So we got some shares. He got a debenture, which is a form of debt. Okay? And he got another kind of debt which is unsecured, all of that in exchange for the transfer of these assets. At the same time, a company the company also took out a loan from a mister b we're gonna call him. Okay, and mister b transferred £5,000 to the company to kind of get it started, okay, in return for this debt. Okay? So mister b is a creditor. The company eventually becomes insolvent. Mister b is a secured creditor, so he gets paid, but there's some unsecured creditors who don't get anything. We see that again, there's unsecured debt here, so those unsecured creditors include mister s but also some third parties and they don't get anything and they're represented by the liquidator on the right.
你可以看到他是怎么做到的,基本上是他做了什么。这对教程很有用,因为他拿走了他个人作为独资经营者拥有的所有资产,并将它们转移到 box, solomon 公司,以换取一堆东西。所以我们得到了一些份额。他有一份债券,这是一种债务。好?他得到了另一种无担保的债务,所有这些都是为了换取这些资产的转移。与此同时,一家公司还从我们称之为 b 先生那里获得了一笔贷款。好吧,先生 b 向公司转账了 5,000 英镑,以启动它,好吧,作为这笔债务的回报。好?所以 B 先生是债权人。公司最终资不抵债。B 先生是有担保债权人,所以他得到了付款,但有一些无担保债权人什么也得不到。我们再次看到,这里有无担保债务,所以这些无担保债权人包括 s 先生,但也包括一些第三方,他们什么也得不到,由右边的清算人代表。
So the liquidator comes to court on behalf of the unsecured creditors. Again, mister v got his payment back. And the liquidator wants to set aside the entire transfer of the business from mister s mister solomon to the company and also wants to declare this debenture that the debt that mister s has as a creditor also invalid because that would deserve. Payment ahead of everybody else also. All of those priority rules and who gets paid what and why the debtor why the creditors get paid first all of that assembly.
因此,清算人代表无担保债权人出庭。先生 v 再次拿回了他的付款。清算人想把业务从 Mister s Mister Solomon 转移到公司的全部转让搁置一旁,还想宣布这个债券,S 先生作为债权人的债务也无效,因为这是应得的。也比其他人先付款。所有这些优先规则,以及谁得到报酬、债务人、债务人、为什么债权人首先得到报酬。
So don't worry about it. But maybe some of you have a sense of how this works. The secondary argument that again is that so some kind of indemnity for creating this whole structure because it's really a fraud. Okay, it's really mister solomon himself. Okay, and he called it a company, but it's really just him. So I get to go after him and all his assets now because my clients the unsecured creditors need money, so this one all the way up to the house of lords. And the house of lords said no liability of solomon to the company. Why? Because of the separate legal entity principle and there is no fraud found here. When a single human being, a sole proprietor chooses to create a legal entity, even if the purpose of doing that is to create a limited liability shield. That is a feature of the company and everyone who creates a company is intentionally creating a limited liability entity. It has the effect of shielding mister solomon from the claims of the liquidator.
所以不用担心。但也许你们中的一些人对这是如何工作的有所了解。第二个论点是,创建整个结构需要某种赔偿,因为它确实是一个骗局。好吧,真的是所罗门先生本人。好吧,他称它为一家公司,但实际上只有他。所以我现在开始追查他和他的所有资产,因为我的客户,无担保债权人需要钱,所以这个一直到上议院。上议院说所罗门对公司没有责任。为什么?由于独立的法人实体原则,这里没有发现欺诈行为。当一个人时,独资经营者选择创建一个法人实体,即使这样做的目的是创建一个有限责任盾牌。这是公司的一个特点,每个创建公司的人都是有意创建一个有限责任实体。它的作用是保护所罗门先生免受清算人的索赔。
But the court said that's not a fraud. A a there was a legitimate transfer of assets here, and everyone was aware of the circumstances and purpose. It is not illegal to shield assets in a limited liability entity. And the company was solvent at the time that this was done. All these transfers happened when there was plenty of money in the company. It was not done intentionally to defraud creditors. This will become relevant in our second hour, okay? But the basic rule is upholding this principle of separate legal personality, and that's the main point of solomon versus solomon.
但法院表示,这不是欺诈。A a 这里有合法的资产转移,每个人都知道情况和目的。在有限责任实体中保护资产并不违法。在完成这项工作时,公司是有偿付能力的。所有这些转移都发生在公司资金充足时。它不是故意欺诈债权人。这将在我们的第二个小时变得有意义,好吗?但基本规则是维护这个独立的法人资格的原则,这就是所罗门与所罗门的要点。
Okay, so ii kind of said all this already, the next case. And this is really just kind of another illustration of the same point. So again, i'm gonna hit this pretty quickly. This is the case of macao versus more than assurance. And essentially we have mister m here who's the shareholder sells his timber business to the company. So now the timber is all owned by the company, but mister m forgot something. Mr. M did not have good counsel, apparently, because mr. M had an insurance policy on the timber, which is the asset that has value, but mr. M forgot to transfer the insurance. The insurance is protecting mister m and his assets. Do his assets include the timber? No, not anymore. They don't because he transferred the timber to the company. The company now holds those assets, so you can see the problem already.
好的,所以我差不多已经说了这么多,下一个案例。这实际上只是同一观点的另一个例子。所以,我将很快解决这个问题。这就是 Macau 的情况,而不是 More assurance。基本上,我们这里有 m 先生,他是将他的木材业务出售给公司的股东。所以现在木材都归公司所有,但 m 先生忘记了什么。显然,M 先生没有好的律师,因为 M 先生为木材购买了保险单,木材是有价值的资产,但 M 先生忘记转让保险。保险保护 m 先生和他的资产。他的资产包括木材吗?不,现在不是了。他们没有,因为他把木材转让给了公司。该公司现在持有这些资产,因此您已经可以看到问题所在。
Unfortunately, 3 weeks after the transfer of the timber was destroyed by fire, mister m tries to claim on the policy that he holds in his own name. Do you think that's going to work? No. Why? Separate legal personality? Okay? We have two separate entities here, okay? Court held as it, obviously would that mister m had no insurable interest in the timber and that the timber that was destroyed belonged to the company which didn't have insurance. Okay? Again, these are not one and the same anymore. The court said no shareholder has any right. Even if they originally did before the transfer, no shareholder now has written right to any item of property owned by the company. For he has no legal or equitable interest therein. Hopefully, you see that's different from partnerships. He is entitled to a share in the profits while the company continues to carry on business. We call those dividends. We'll talk more about that later.
不幸的是,在木材转让被大火烧毁 3 周后,m 先生试图以自己的名义对他持有的保单提出索赔。你觉得这行得通吗?不。为什么?独立的法人资格?好?我们这里有两个独立的实体,好吗?法院认为,显然 m 先生对木材没有可保权益,而被销毁的木材属于没有保险的公司。好?同样,这些不再是一回事。法院表示,任何股东都没有任何权利。即使他们最初在转让前这样做,现在也没有股东对公司拥有的任何财产拥有书面权利。因为他在其中没有法律或衡平法上的利益。希望你能看到这与伙伴关系不同。他有权在公司继续开展业务的同时分享利润。我们称之为股息。我们稍后会详细讨论。
He's also entitled to a share in the distribution of the surplus or leftover assets.
他还有权分享剩余或剩余资产的分配。
When the company is wound up, that means after the creditors are paid, those are his rights, but he does not have rights, legal or equitable to the property held by the company itself. So I get a pretty straightforward and obvious conclusion, but one that's very important for you all to remember. Okay. Another kind of quirky result of this legal separateness is that we also need to be careful and you all need to be careful on an exam that the human beings involved with corporations can have different roles, or we might say they wear different, they can wear different hats. Okay? And so it's your job to keep straight what the people's rules are. Okay? Because we just said that mister solomon here was a member or shareholder of the company. Okay? But he might have had other roles.
当公司清盘时,这意味着在债权人获得偿付后,这些是他的权利,但他对公司本身持有的财产没有法律或衡平法上的权利。所以我得到了一个非常简单明了的结论,但对你们所有人来说,记住这个结论非常重要。好。这种法律分离的另一种古怪结果是,我们也需要小心,你们都需要小心检查,与公司有关的人可以扮演不同的角色,或者我们可以说他们穿着不同,可以戴不同的帽子。好?因此,你的工作是保持人们的规则是什么。好?因为我们刚才说过,这里的所罗门先生是公司的成员或股东。好?但他可能还有其他角色。
And in fact, that's what happens here in lee versus lee's air farming. So as you can see from the circles at the top, mister lee has three different roles. This is actually not three people. This is one person. Okay? Who has three roles in this company? Mister li is a shareholder or member. Mister li is also a director. We'll learn more about directors in the next couple of weeks. Mister lee is, however, also an employee who's hired to fly airplanes on behalf of the company that he owns and runs. When unfortunately, the plane crashes on one of his work obligations, the question arises, can his widow get employee benefits? Okay. And is he eligible for workers compensation when he's also a member and director of this company? Okay? And the court said that it is a logical consequence of solomon versus solomon that one person may function in dual capacities. There's no reason to prevent mister li from having a contract with the company, which is a separate legal person, even though he is the sole member and director of that company, he can create a contractual relationship, in this case, an employment relationship with the company.
事实上,这就是 Lee 与 Lee 的空气农场中发生的事情。因此,从顶部的圆圈中可以看出,李先生有三个不同的角色。这其实不是三个人。这是一个人。好?谁在这家公司担任三个角色?李先生是股东或成员。李先生也是一名导演。在接下来的几周内,我们将了解更多关于导演的信息。然而,李先生也是一名受雇代表他拥有和经营的公司驾驶飞机的员工。当飞机不幸因他的一项工作义务而坠毁时,问题出现了,他的遗孀能获得员工福利吗?好。当他也是这家公司的成员和董事时,他是否有资格获得工伤赔偿?好?法院表示,所罗门与所罗门的逻辑结果是,一个人可以以双重身份发挥作用。没有理由阻止李先生与公司签订合同,公司是一个独立的法人,即使他是该公司的唯一成员和董事,他也可以建立合同关系,在这种情况下,与公司建立雇佣关系。
And that employment relationship is the same as an employment relationship with any other company. And he's entitled to workers compensation benefits, at least his widow is okay. And the company can enter into that contract and they reverse the court of appeals on that ground again, relying on solomon versus solomon. That's irrespective of the fact that on that contract, he would be signing the contract
这种雇佣关系与与任何其他公司的雇佣关系相同。而且他有权获得工伤赔偿福利,至少他的遗孀没事。公司可以签订该合同,然后他们再次以该理由推翻上诉法院,依赖于所罗门与所罗门的判决。这与那份合同上他将签署合同的事实无关
说话人2 31:02
twice.
两次。
说话人1 31:04
One says the employee in his own capacity. One says the director of the company representing the company will learn more about that in a couple of weeks. That's kind of the basics of the corporate form and some of the key features of the corporate form.
一个说是员工以他自己的身份。一位表示,代表该公司的公司的董事将在几周内了解更多信息。这就是公司形式的基本要素,也是公司形式的一些关键特征。
The next thing I want to spend some time on is what are some ways in which the law circumvents legal liability or legal separateness? And these two features are different features, but they very much work to together and go together.
接下来我想花一些时间讨论的是,法律通过哪些方式规避法律责任或法律独立性?这两个功能是不同的功能,但它们在很大程度上可以一起工作,也可以一起工作。
So we're gonna talk about ways in which the law might go around or circumvent separate legal personality. So we might consider the question of what if entrepreneurs like the mister solomon is the world, try to commit fraud? Or what if this legal separation creates some kind of injustice? What if it renders a creditors claim unenforceable like we saw again in solomon itself. How does the law deal with that? Does the law deal with that? Are there any exceptions?
因此,我们将讨论法律可能绕过或规避独立法人资格的方式。因此,我们可以考虑这样一个问题:如果像所罗门先生这样的企业家就是全世界,试图进行欺诈怎么办?或者,如果这种合法的分离造成了某种不公正呢?如果它使债权人索赔无法执行,就像我们在所罗门案中再次看到的那样,该怎么办。法律如何处理这个问题?法律是否处理这个问题?是否有任何例外?
So i'm not gonna read through all these questions. We're gonna come back to them, but I want you to think about them because they are all super important. Okay. These are the normative questions about should the law be this way? How far should the law allow exceptions? How far should it not allow exceptions? What kind of creditors are we most worried about? What kind of creditors should be able to protect themselves when dealing with a limited liability entity? Do these justifications work the same way when we talk about more complex corporate entities like the ones we're gonna look at in the second hour? And are there other legal or policy tools that we can use to hold companies responsible? Even if we are preserving legal separateness?
所以我不打算通读所有这些问题。我们将回到它们,但我希望您考虑它们,因为它们都非常重要。好。这些是关于法律应该这样吗?法律应该在多大程度上允许例外?它不应该允许异常的程度有多大?我们最担心的是什么样的债权人?什么样的债权人在与有限责任实体打交道时应该能够保护自己?当我们谈论更复杂的公司实体(例如我们将在第二个小时内讨论的公司实体)时,这些理由是否同样有效?我们可以使用其他法律或政策工具来追究公司的责任吗?即使我们保持法律上的独立性?
I want to start out with that last one and think about when something goes wrong. How else might the corporation or how else might real people their responsibility and still protect legal separateness? There's a way that we can honor legal separateness. At the same time, have some exceptions on the limited liability side or find others that can be held liable when something goes wrong.
我想从最后一个开始,考虑一下什么时候出了问题。否则,公司如何或真实的人如何承担责任并仍然保护法律上的独立性?我们有一种方法可以尊重法律上的独立性。同时,在有限责任方面有一些例外,或者找到其他可以在出现问题时承担责任的人。
Let's look at how this works. One of the obvious ways we might override limited liability is voluntarily by contract. Okay, I hope this now strikes you as obvious, right? The parties contract out of limited liability. Can I agree to assume liability? Yes. I I could issue you a guarantee of your debt. Okay. My son wants to buy a car. The bank probably won't let him buy a car right now unless I sign on it, what have I done? I have contractually assume liability for the high chance that my son will be unable to pay the payments on his car, okay? The bank will then come to me.
让我们看看它是如何工作的。我们可以推翻有限责任的明显方式之一是自愿签订合同。好吧,我希望这现在让你觉得很明显,对吧?双方签订有限责任合同。我可以同意承担责任吗?是的。我可以给你出一份债务担保。好。我儿子想买车。除非我签字,否则银行现在可能不会让他买车,我做了什么?我已经根据合同承担了我儿子很可能无法支付他的汽车付款的责任,好吗?然后银行会来找我。
Now we are two separate persons, but I have agreed to contractually assume liability on this debt. There really should be the debt of my son, right? So this happens all the time. This happens a lot with startup companies who like my son often or don't have any money. The banks usually require the founders personal guarantee over the loan. So again, are we changing legal, separate as well? We're getting a more financially stable entity or person to stand behind that depth. So maybe we might say we're not even overriding limited liability either, but this is one of the solutions where we are areas where you might assume that liability.
现在我们是两个独立的人,但我已同意在合同上承担这笔债务的责任。真的应该欠我儿子的债吧?所以这种情况一直都在发生。这种情况经常发生在经常喜欢我儿子或没有任何钱的初创公司身上。银行通常要求创始人对贷款提供个人担保。那么,我们是否也要改变法律上的、独立的?我们正在让一个财务更稳定的实体或个人来支持这种深度。因此,也许我们可能会说我们甚至没有推翻有限责任,但这是我们可能承担该责任的解决方案之一。
What about statutorily? The legislature has also created ways in which the people who are really making decisions for the company might also be held responsible for actions that the company takes. We're gonna talk next week on how it is that a company takes action, because we haven't talked about that yet. And the company can only act for real people like mister lee, right? How does the law deal with this relationship? So the example here is what if the company is fine, okay? Who's really affected by that? You might say the shareholders are ultimately affected because the company has to pay money. Okay? What if there's not enough money there? How are the creditors who have been harmed gonna be compensated? This is some of the problems. I'm just gonna throw some examples up here. We're not gonna read the statute, but i'm gonna highlight some ways in which this happens. First of all, within the company's ordinance itself. You can see that this example is from cap 622. The notion here is accessory liability, which is that the human being involved could be seen to be an accessory to the harm committed, in this case, to the violation of the company's ordinance that might be committed by the company itself.
法定呢?立法机关还创造了一些方法,让真正为公司做决定的人也可以对公司采取的行动负责。下周我们将讨论公司如何采取行动,因为我们还没有讨论过这个问题。而且公司只能为像李先生这样的真人代理,对吧?法律如何处理这种关系?所以这里的例子是,如果公司没事怎么办,好吗?谁真正受其影响?你可能会说,股东最终会受到影响,因为公司必须支付费用。好?如果那里没有足够的钱怎么办?受到损害的债权人将如何获得赔偿?这是一些问题。我只是想在这里举一些例子。我们不打算阅读该法规,但我将强调发生这种情况的一些方式。首先,在公司的条例本身范围内。你可以看到这个例子来自 cap 622。这里的概念是从犯责任,即所涉及的人可以被视为公司本身可能犯下的违反公司条例的伤害的从犯。
So obviously, we could see that those people are facilitating perhaps this violation of law. So the company's ordinance deals with this by creating something called a responsible person. In section three of the company's ordinance says that this applies where a provision of the company's ordinance says that a responsible person of a company or a foreign company commits an effect, an offense. This occurs where there is a violation of the ordinance or some other breach of a direction or order, for example, by a court. Okay. It applies to several individuals affiliated with the company. We'll talk about shadow directors in a couple of weeks. I've given the definition to you, but it covers officers, directors, which is part of officers and also something called a shadow director, which is somebody who effectively is acting like a director, even though they're not.
所以很明显,我们可以看到这些人可能在为这种违法行为提供便利。因此,公司的条例通过设立一个叫做负责人的东西来处理这个问题。在公司条例的第三节中,这适用于公司条例的条款规定公司或外国公司的负责人犯下影响,即违法行为。这种情况发生在违反条例或其他违反指示或命令的情况,例如法院。好。它适用于与公司有关联的多个个人。几周后我们将讨论影子导演。我已经给大家给出了定义,但它涵盖了高级职员、董事,这是高级职员的一部分,也包括所谓的影子董事,即实际上行为像董事的人,即使他们不是。
Again, we'll talk more about this when we get to directors in a few weeks, but the point is accessory liability, hold the real people making the decisions responsible when the company does something.
同样,当我们在几周后与董事们讨论时,我们会更多地讨论这个问题,但重点是从属责任,当公司做某事时,让真正的决策者负责。
Here's an example where that pops up. So if we get the authorization for this notion of accessory liability in section three, section 88 is an example of this.
下面是一个弹出的示例。因此,如果我们在第 3 条中获得了从犯责任概念的授权,那么第 88 条就是一个例子。
We're gonna talk about this also in a couple of weeks when we look at what is the certificate of incorporation or the articles of association of a corporation? And how do you make
几周后,当我们查看什么是公司注册证书或公司章程时,我们也将讨论这个问题?你怎么制作
说话人2 37:35
changes?
变化?
说话人1 37:36
This is the section about making changes. And it says, if you make a change by special resolution or ordinary resolution, it has to be registered so that the rest of the world will know about it. What if you violate this? We're imagining the corporation has violated this by failing to register this change that's required. Sub six says every responsible person in the company can be subject to a penalty. This is a way in which liability can attach for an action of the corporation, even though we have a limited liability entity. So the basic rule here I want you to remember don't be confused, is that every bad actor is held responsible for their own bad actions. Okay? You just have to figure out on what basis on what theory, okay? Just because we're dealing with a limited liability entity, and you see that there's a corporation involved in your question, doesn't mean all creditors have no remedy, no liability.
这是关于进行更改的部分。它说,如果你通过特殊分辨率或普通分辨率进行更改,则必须注册,以便世界其他地方知道。如果你违反了这个怎么办?我们想象公司违反了这一点,因为没有注册所需的更改。Sub six 表示,公司中的每个负责人都可能受到处罚。这是公司的行为可以附带责任的一种方式,即使我们有一个有限责任实体。所以,我希望你记住的基本规则不要混淆,每个坏人都要为自己的坏行为负责。好?你只需要弄清楚什么基础、什么理论,好吗?仅仅因为我们正在与有限责任实体打交道,并且您看到您的问题涉及一家公司,并不意味着所有债权人都没有补救措施,没有责任。
There are many other ways that someone could be held liable, including maybe the corporation itself. So here the responsible person can be held liable. Right? Similarly, section 275, this is a prohibition on financial assistance. You're gonna become very familiar with this statute in zambia. This, again, just an example, but you see in the red, there were language responsible person. So if there's a violation by the company of this statue who can be held liable, not just the company, but real people. Right? The responsible person you can see the penalty at the bottom. And as an american, this is all very strange because our company law in the us does not allow criminal penalties that hardly allows civil penalties for directors or officers of the company. And I was so shocked to come here and find that the rules in uk and hong kong are so harsh and you could be in jail or fine if you don't file these things or if you violate this prohibition on financial assistance.
还有许多其他方式可以追究某人的责任,可能包括公司本身。所以在这里,责任人可以被追究责任。右?同样,第 275 条禁止经济援助。您将非常熟悉赞比亚的这项法规。这又只是一个例子,但你看到红色,有语言负责人。所以,如果公司违反了这个雕像的行为,谁可以承担责任,不仅仅是公司,而是真实的人。右?负责人 您可以在底部看到处罚。作为一个美国人,这一切都非常奇怪,因为我们美国的公司法不允许刑事处罚,而几乎不允许对公司的董事或高级职员进行民事处罚。我来到这里时感到非常震惊,发现英国和香港的规定如此严厉,如果你不提交这些东西,或者如果你违反了这项经济援助禁令,你可能会被关进监狱或罚款。
So and there's good reasons for that we'll talk about in symbian. This case. But anyway, pretty serious stuff. A final example here, responsibility of directors for fraudulent trading. Again, if you use the company to commit fraud, or if you allow the company to keep operating, when there's no money, and you keep signing contracts with an intent to defraud the predators, because there's no money to pay those bills. We have a separate statute that can hold you liable, even though there is a limited liability entity that's being used to do this. So bad actors are held responsible because we have a statute that specifically prohibits this kind of fraud. Okay? You can see that this one applies. I've got a question who's liable. It applies to any persons, not just our magic responsible person, but any persons in the orange who are knowing parties to carrying out fraud. So the legislature has discovered that companies can be used to hide things sometimes or hide how you're doing things, or can be used as a tool to do things.
所以,我们有充分的理由在 symbian 中讨论这个问题。这个案例。但无论如何,这是相当严肃的事情。最后一个例子,董事对欺诈交易的责任。同样,如果你利用公司进行欺诈,或者如果你允许公司继续运营,而没有钱,你继续签订合同,意图欺骗掠夺者,因为没有钱支付这些账单。我们有一个单独的法规可以追究您的责任,即使有一个有限责任实体被用来这样做。因此,不良行为者被追究责任,因为我们有一项专门禁止此类欺诈的法规。好?你可以看到这个应用。我有一个问题,谁该负责。它适用于任何人,不仅仅是我们魔术师的负责人,而是任何知道实施欺诈的人。因此,立法机构发现,公司有时可以用来隐藏事情或隐藏你做事的方式,或者可以用作做事的工具。
So when you face on your tutorials and questions where it might appear, that some individuals are using the company for bad purposes, you might think about whether some of these other bases of liability might be relevant. We also have criminal law. We have the merchant dani case. And this is a case in which there was a risk involved in this business, because a this is the publication that was deemed to be in violation of prohibitions on distributing obscene materials. Okay? Who got charged criminally, the company's officers were charged. It turned out that the thing that got them in trouble was just that would not that they actually went out on the street and sold this stuff. Okay, the company was doing that and other people were doing that. Maybe some employees. But why were they charged? Because they consented or connive to cover up or deliberately decided not to know that illegal material was being sold by the company.
因此,当您在教程和问题中遇到一些人将公司用于不良目的时,您可能会考虑其他一些责任基础是否相关。我们也有刑法。我们有 merchant dani 案。这是一个涉及这项业务风险的案例,因为 a 这是被认为违反了禁止分发淫秽材料的出版物。好?谁被刑事指控,公司官员就被指控。事实证明,让他们陷入困境的是,他们真的走上街头卖这些东西。好吧,公司正在这样做,其他人也在这样做。也许是一些员工。但他们为什么被指控呢?因为他们同意或纵容掩盖或故意决定不知道公司正在出售非法材料。
So this is similar to kind of almost any other, what a major liability risk you can think of. The individuals can be responsible for inaction, for closing their eyes to harm. And in this case, for closing their eyes to a criminal violation
所以这几乎类似于你能想到的重大责任风险。个人可以为不作为负责,对伤害视而不见。在这种情况下,他们对刑事违法行为视而不见
说话人2 41:55
by the company.
由公司提供。
说话人1 41:57
So you can look at virtue and donny and think about how directly or indirectly do we want to hold people responsible for corporate conduct. But the criminal law is another place were consent or in the words of the statute here, connivance of a director or other officer in management can result in them being guilty of the same offense. We have another very important statute that I want you to be familiar with. This comes up in our case law. I know liu honeymoon case, which we'll talk about in a moment. It's called toefl, tobo the transfer of business ordinance. And in the past, when professor luc was lecturing this, he really likes toefl. I think. I think he likes it because it's a statute, and it's kind of complicated.
因此,你可以看看 virtue 和 donny,想想我们想如何直接或间接地让人们对公司行为负责。但刑法是同意的另一个地方,或者用这里的法规的话来说,纵容董事或其他管理人员可能会导致他们犯有相同的罪行。我们还有另一项非常重要的法规,我希望您熟悉。这在我们的判例法中有所体现。我知道刘蜜月案,我们稍后会讨论。它被称为 toefl,tobo 商业转让条例。而在过去,当 luc 教授讲这个时,他真的很喜欢托福。我认为。我认为他喜欢它,因为这是一部法规,而且有点复杂。
It has a lot of sub provisions For those of you who are interested in transaction work. If you read taobao, you will be thinking how can anyone do business in hong kong without being liable under this thing. The answer is you need to read the rest of the statute. I'm not gonna tell you the rest of the statute. I want you to read the rest of the statute. I want you to see how this really works. Okay? But what it says basically is that when you transfer a business with or without the goodwill thereof, that means the trademarks, the name, the ip the reputation, and the branding, the transferee, shall even if you have a contract that says otherwise become liable for all the debts and obligations of the transfer or your obvious question that you are all thinking right now is how on earth can you transfer a business or a part of a business without getting in trouble under the statute and having the buyer be responsible for everything that you did before?
它有很多子条款 对于那些对交易工作感兴趣的人。如果你读淘宝,你会想怎么能有人在香港做生意而不承担这件事的责任。答案是您需要阅读法规的其余部分。我不打算告诉你法规的其余部分。我希望您阅读该法规的其余部分。我想让你看看这到底是如何运作的。好?但它基本上说的是,当您转让企业时,无论是否有商誉,这意味着商标、名称、知识产权、声誉和品牌,受让人,即使您有一份合同规定,否则将对转让的所有债务和义务负责,或者您现在都在思考的明显问题是,您到底如何转让企业或是企业的一部分,而不会根据法规惹上麻烦,并让买方对您之前所做的一切负责?
All those liabilities. What do you do? Well, it turns out that there's a solution to that. But again, what's the point of this? The point of this is to avoid the problem that we see in the liu hanging case. So we're gonna come back to that in a moment, but the statute was created almost in intentionally to deal with that kind of situation. Again, we have a statutory provision that you need to be aware of. That applies even though we're dealing with a limited liability entity.
所有这些负债。你是做什么工作的?嗯,事实证明有一个解决方案。但同样,这有什么意义呢?这样做的重点是避免我们在刘吊案中看到的问题。所以我们稍后会回到这个问题上来,但制定该法规几乎是有意为之,以处理这种情况。同样,我们有一个法定条款,您需要了解。即使我们正在与有限责任实体打交道,这也适用。
Okay? We'll see again that there are kind of a safe harbor, if you will. Okay. And the word safe harbor is used a lot in corporate law and in kind of statutory courses. Have anybody heard the word safe harbor used in law school before the idea of a safe harbor? Is it's a provision in the statute. If you specifically comply with the statute, you will be in a harbor that is safe from the typhoon. Okay? You will not be targeted by that legislation or by that penalty if you are within the grounds of that exception. And it turns out that a good faith purchaser for value can avoid successor liability under togo by following the specific provisions of the statute that you're gonna look at later.
好?如果您愿意,我们会再次看到存在某种安全港。好。安全港这个词在公司法和各种法定课程中被广泛使用。在安全港的想法出现之前,有人听说过法学院使用的安全港这个词吗?这是法规中的一项规定。如果您特别遵守法规,您将处于不受台风影响的港口。好?如果您处于该例外情况的范围内,您将不会成为该立法或处罚的目标。事实证明,一个善意的有价购买者可以通过遵循您稍后将要查看的法规的具体规定来避免 togo 下的继任责任。
So i'll leave it to you again to look at those safe harbor conditions. The other important point I will just highlight now unless I forget it later and this is what liu huang ying is useful
因此,我将再次留给您来研究那些安全港条件。另一个重要的一点我现在就强调一下,除非我以后忘记了,这就是刘黄英的用处
说话人2 44:59
for.
为。
说话人1 45:00
Liu ming is very helpful in giving us a common law understanding of how to read the statute, because tobo talks about a transfer of the business. Total applies when there is a transfer of the business from party, a to party b and I need to know what's the transfer of the business, because tobo doesn't define that. It turns out we need a common law definition of what counts as a transfer. Is it any time I sell something? Is it more than that? Do I have to sell everything?
刘明对我们如何阅读法规的普通法理解非常有帮助,因为 tobo 谈到了业务的转让。当业务从一方 a 转移到一方 B 时,总计适用,我需要知道什么是业务转移,因为 tobo 没有定义这一点。事实证明,我们需要一个普通法定义,什么算作转移。我卖东西的时候是什么时候吗?不止于此吗?我必须卖掉所有东西吗?
I'll leave it to you to look again at liu han ying with that in mind to understand what's determined to be a transfer of the business.
我让你再看一遍刘寒英,记住这一点,以了解什么是决定的业务转移。
说话人2 45:41
Okay.
好。
说话人1 45:42
We also have let me remind you some common law theories of direct liability that are also relevant. Okay, so barnes
我们还提醒您一些同样相关的普通法直接责任理论。好的,所以巴恩斯
说话人2 45:50
versus
对
说话人1 45:50
eddie, I think you guys see this in trust equity and trust this ring a bell. Okay? We also don't have the equity
Eddie,我想你们在信任公平和信任中看到了这一点。好?我们也没有股权
说话人2 45:58
interest class
兴趣班
说话人1 45:59
in the us at all. It is a much more robust thing on this side of the ocean, both sides of the ocean. Anyway, if you remember barnes and andy, you remember that there's this notion of liability that can attach here for the kind of thing, which is, again, a kind of an aiding and bedding, sort of liability, but it's again under the common law.
在美国根本没有。在大洋的这一边,大洋的两边,情况要强大得多。无论如何,如果你还记得 barnes 和 andy,你就会记得,这里可以附带这种责任的概念,这又是一种援助和床上用品,一种责任,但它又是在普通法下。
And so this is accessory to a breach of trust.
因此,这是背信弃义的附属品。
Okay, so someone who is not themselves, a trustee
好吧,一个不是他们自己的人,一个受托人
说话人2 46:32
could
能
说话人1 46:33
be considered a constructive trustee.
被视为建设性的受托人。
Let's read the language here. Strangers are not to be made constructive trustees merely because they act as agents of trustees, unless they receive or become chargeable with some part of the trust property or unless they assist in dishonest and fraudulent design by the trustees. So yourself are not a trustee.
让我们在这里阅读语言。陌生人不得仅仅因为他们是受托人的代理人而成为推定受托人,除非他们接收或被征收信托财产的某些部分,或者除非他们协助受托人进行不诚实和欺诈的设计。所以你自己不是受托人。
But if you receive trust property improperly or you assist in some kind of dishonesty or fraud and connection with the trust, then we can come after you directly. So again, this is another example of the bad actor will be held liable. Okay? But this is a common law doctrine. Then hopefully you've seen before. And this is again, accessory liability to a breach of trust. So it started with barnes versus addy, and we've applied it in the case of royal brunei for something called knowing assistance liability. And the royal brunei case is a really great case. It's really easy to read. And it's very clear, I think, on this point. And it kind of brought into relaxes these older common law rules that we see in barnes versus eddie. We see that knowing assistance liability can be imposed. When there's dishonesty, you don't have to actually show fraud, and it can apply when we're using any kind of honest party, whether they're the trustee or otherwise.
但是,如果您不当接收信托财产,或者您协助某种不诚实或欺诈以及与信托有关,那么我们可以直接追究您。所以,这是坏人将被追究责任的另一个例子。好?但这是一个普通法原则。那么希望你以前见过。这又是违反信托的从犯责任。所以它从 barnes 与 addy 开始,我们已经将其应用于 Royal Brunei 的案例,称为知情协助责任。文莱皇家案就是一个非常好的案子。它真的很容易阅读。我认为,在这一点上,这一点非常清楚。它在某种程度上放宽了我们在 Barnes 与 Eddie 案中看到的这些旧的普通法规则。我们看到,明知协助责任是可以被施加的。当存在不诚实行为时,您不必实际证明欺诈行为,当我们使用任何类型的诚实方时,无论他们是受托人还是其他方,它都适用。
And so rover, nice kind of an interesting case. I redid the slide, some of you who downloaded earlier. I noticed the slide that's a little different. I had to fix that this week. But anyway, what happened here is that the airline appointed this travel agent company to make ticket sales and they're supposed to hold the money right? For the airline is kind of how this works. We have a trustee here, this travel agent company. And it put money from the customers into its own account, but it didn't pay the airline. And the reason it didn't pay the airline is because mister tan, the shareholder and director control this whole process and was attempting to engage in fraud.
所以 rover,一个很好的有趣案例。我重做了这张幻灯片,你们中的一些人之前下载了。我注意到幻灯片有点不同。这周我必须解决这个问题。但无论如何,这里发生的事情是航空公司指定这家旅行社进行机票销售,他们应该持有这笔钱,对吗?对于航空公司来说,这就是它的运作方式。我们这里有一个受托人,这家旅行社公司。它将客户的钱存入自己的账户,但没有向航空公司付款。它没有向航空公司付款的原因是,股东兼董事 Tan 先生控制了整个过程,并试图进行欺诈。
So you see that this doesn't exactly fit barnes versus addie because tan is not the trustee himself, right? Tan is the third party, but tan is also not innocent. It's a little different than barnes versus eddie tan is the guilty after here. Tan is the shareholder director who's like manipulating this to cause this company not to pay the money to the airline.
所以你会看到这并不完全适合 barnes 和 addie,因为 tan 本身不是受托人,对吧?谭是第三方,但谭也不是无辜的。这与 Barnes 对 Eddie Tan 是罪魁祸首略有不同。Tan 是股东董事,他就像操纵这件事,导致这家公司不向航空公司支付这笔钱。
The question is, can he will be held liable on this kind of accessory theory, even though the innocent parties are kind of flipped? In these cases, can he be held directly liable to the airline? So can be the defendant here on a knowing assistance theory? The answer is he can be held liable as a constructive trustee for knowing assistance of the innocent company. The innocent travel agent was just holding the money and not being allowed to pay anything.
问题是,他能否因这种从犯理论而承担责任,即使无辜的一方有点颠倒了?在这些情况下,他是否可以直接对航空公司负责?那么,这里的被告可以基于知情协助理论吗?答案是,他可以作为建设性受托人承担责任,因为他知道无辜公司的帮助。无辜的旅行社只是拿着钱,不被允许支付任何费用。
This is kind of a circumvention device. This is an example of how the corporate form, in this case, the travel agent can be used to harm the airline or another third party. Okay? Because the people involved are using the corporation for this purpose. And in this case, they're using a trust, a structure kind of indirectly for this purpose, and they're doing so dishonestly. And the question is, can that individual be held liable for their own bad acts? The answer is yes. As a knowing assistance, ongoing assistance grounds. This is not related at all to any kind of exceptions and limited liability, or any kind of exception to separate legal personhood. The separate legal identity of all of the corporations involved here has not changed. Right now, we're just kind of brainstorming, what are the many ways that we have to attach liability to the bad actor? When we have legal separateness and when we have a limited liability entity.
这是一种规避装置。这是一个例子,说明公司形式(在本例中为旅行社)如何被用来伤害航空公司或其他第三方。好?因为相关人员正在为此目的使用公司。在这种情况下,他们正在使用信托,一种间接地用于此目的的结构,而且他们这样做是不诚实的。问题是,这个人能为自己的不良行为负责吗?答案是肯定的。作为知情的帮助,持续的援助理由。这与任何类型的例外和有限责任,或任何种类的独立法人例外完全无关。这里涉及的所有公司的独立法律身份没有改变。现在,我们只是在集思广益,我们必须通过哪些方式将责任归咎于不良行为者?当我们在法律上独立并且我们拥有有限责任实体时。
Okay, so we're gonna take a short break. I do want to take a little bit shorter break today because we're a little slow getting started. Let's come back. Right at one. And we're gonna talk about veil piercing, which is a common law way of creating an actual exception to separate legal personhood and limited liability together. So we're gonna talk about that after the break.
好了,我们休息一下。我今天确实想休息一下,因为我们的开始有点慢。让我们回来吧。就在一。我们将讨论面纱穿孔,这是一种普通法方式,用于创建实际例外,将法人和有限责任分开。所以我们将在休息后讨论这个问题。
All
都
说话人2 50:45
right.
右。
A right.
A 权利。
说话人1 51:14
Whoever has the sign in sheet, please make sure it keeps moving, and it eventually makes its way down here. Keep passing this along with you guys.
无论谁有签到表,请确保它一直在移动,它最终会来到这里。继续与你们一起传递这个。
说话人2 51:26
Okay? Portion, ok. Okay. It's so I I don't think is. Thank you. No. I think equity company, prc present the whole, present the whole will work like the whole life. You have to show the whole relations. And that's all about it. I don't know that. I don't know which is what's in there. So that's possible that what's the real? That is fine. A what were you raise? I hope that is what they were trying to usually more than one time.
好?份量,好的。好。我不认为是这样。谢谢。不。我认为 equity company, prc presents the whole, present the whole will works like the whole life.你必须展示整个关系。就是这样。我不知道。我不知道哪个是里面的。所以有可能,什么是真实的?这很好。答:你加了什么钱?我希望这就是他们通常不止一次尝试的。
And the younger also is that your company a lot of money is a very healthy for some time. Suddenly show me. Nasa. You don't want someone there for sure.
而且年轻的也是你的公司很多钱在一段时间内是非常健康的。突然给我看看。美国宇航局。你肯定不希望有人在那里。
Ok. Listen it before. If you. Have the book cover show for the football. The time was a casino. Is a good. That's a I is they're gonna offer for that company. Is it something about it? I can talk more. Is it with it? I don't know what it is, which is, this is yourself in different doctrines in return. I here is the more city time. Do you want here for the number? You'll follow. It, is. I think nano I that's it. I other functions. It is.
好的,之前听过。如果你。让足球的书籍封面展。那时候是一家赌场。是好的。这就是他们将为那家公司提供的 I。是不是有什么关系呢?我可以多说些。是吗?我不知道那是什么,那就是,这是你自己在不同的教义中作为回报。我在这里是更多的城市时间。你想在这里查看号码吗?你会跟着的。是的。我想 nano I 就是这样。I 其他功能。是的。
说话人1 58:56
Hey, welcome back.
嘿,欢迎回来。
说话人2 59:03
Go
去
说话人1 59:04
ahead and get started.
Ahead 并开始。
We're gonna move kind of quickly this hour as well. We moved a bit quickly, last hour. So hopefully, all of you are realizing that it's important to do your best to read the material and at least the slides as possible. Before class, you can kind of follow along. We're gonna be just, again, giving you kind of an overview of this area and so that you can dig into it more specifically and get some of the harder questions in the tutorial next week.
我们这个小时也会迅速行动。我们行动得有点快,最后一小时。因此,希望你们所有人都意识到,尽最大努力阅读材料,至少阅读幻灯片是很重要的。上课前,你可以跟着做。我们将再次为您提供此领域的概述,以便您可以更具体地深入研究它,并在下周的教程中获得一些更难的问题。
Okay? So we talked about some ways in which both the statute and the common law in other areas of the law, create exceptions or allow for kind of circumvention of limited liability and separate legal personality within corporate law. The main tool for circumventing or eliminating maybe extreme effects of these features is something called piercing or lifting the corporate veil. It's a very strange terminology. I still, despite studying this area for my research, can I give you anything on like why we use this term? But it is referred to the doctrine is referred to as the doctrine of veil piercing or veil lifting. And there's not really much distinction, but it has two different ways that you might see it. And this is also what might make you very confused about the cases, and very confused for tutorial. So pay attention that this can work in two different directions. Okay, if you're reading academic articles on this, sometimes there's different terms they use for these. I just recently discovered literally this year, preparing for class. One of the reasons I was confused about this terminology in literature is because I think american scholars use the reverse terminology for this as in the uk and then also, I think the courts are more liberal in the us and how they apply this.
好?因此,我们讨论了成文法和普通法在法律其他领域的一些方式,在公司法中创造了例外或允许规避有限责任和独立法人资格。规避或消除这些功能的极端影响的主要工具是称为刺穿或揭开公司面纱的东西。这是一个非常奇怪的术语。尽管我研究这个领域是为了我的研究,但我能给你一些关于我们为什么使用这个词的东西吗?但它被称为刺穿面纱或揭开面纱的教义。实际上没有太大区别,但您可能会以两种不同的方式看待它。这也是可能让你对案例感到非常困惑,对教程感到非常困惑的原因。所以要注意,这可以在两个不同的方向上起作用。好吧,如果你正在阅读这方面的学术文章,有时他们会使用不同的术语来描述这些。我最近才发现今年,我正在准备上课。我对文学中的这个术语感到困惑的原因之一是,我认为美国学者使用相反的术语,就像在英国一样,而且,我认为美国的法院以及他们如何应用这一点更加自由。
And so the cases that we focus on are like the opposite kind of cases from here. So i'll say more about that in a moment. But it, for your purposes, this can work in two directions. Here's a picture that we put it before where we have the members and shareholders at the top. We have a separate legal person, the corporation in the middle, and we have a creditor of the corporation. And the question is, are there circumstances under which we will allow the creditor of the corporation to go after the assets of the members, the shareholders,
因此,我们关注的案例与本文相反。所以我稍后会详细介绍这一点。但是,就您的目的而言,这可以朝着两个方向进行。这是我们放在前面的一张图片,其中成员和股东位于顶部。我们有一个独立的法人,即中间的公司,我们有公司的债权人。问题是,在什么情况下,我们会允许公司的债权人追讨成员、股东、
说话人2 01:01:35
the people?
野?
说话人1 01:01:36
Okay, now again, there might be a company nor the shareholders. So when I say people, it might not be an individual, a human person. It might be a legal person as well. K and m could be other companies, but the point is that they are shareholders separate from the corporate entity. The d is down here. This is referring to the directors. And at this point in time, we still in most jurisdictions must have human beings to be ai directors, not corporate legal person directors yet.
好吧,现在又说一次,可能有公司或股东。所以当我说人时,它可能不是一个个体,一个人类。也可能是法人。K 和 m 可以是其他公司,但关键是它们是独立于公司实体的股东。d 在这里。这指的是董事们。目前,我们仍然在大多数司法管辖区必须有人类成为 AI 董事,而不是公司法人董事。
So My own view is that's good. And we should keep it that way. Some of you might want to write about that. But anyway, we're gonna leave them over here for now. One direction this can go is there is a liability of the corporation, and the corporation goes bankrupt or something happens. And we want to go after the owners, the shareholders, or they're both in existence, but we're not sure who has assets, so we're gonna sue both of them anyway. Again, liability of the corporation, we want to go after the shareholders. The second example is the other way around, okay? Where there's a liability of the shareholder or there's an obligation of the shareholder. Okay? We wanna attach that obligation or make the corporation responsible for the obligation, or in some cases, even a contractual limitation or restriction that is binding on the shareholder member k or m we can imagine a situation, for example, where kay's assets are not enough to satisfy the creditor of kay.
所以我自己认为这很好。我们应该保持这种状态。你们中的一些人可能想写一下。但无论如何,我们现在就把它们留在这里。这种情况的一个方向是公司负有责任,公司破产或发生某些事情。我们想追究所有者、股东,或者他们都存在,但我们不确定谁拥有资产,所以无论如何我们都要起诉他们。同样,公司的责任,我们想追究股东的责任。第二个例子是相反的,好吗?股东有责任或股东有义务。好?我们希望附加该义务或让公司负责该义务,或者在某些情况下,甚至是对股东成员 k 或 m 具有约束力的合同限制或限制,我们可以想象一种情况,例如,kay 的资产不足以满足 kay 的债权人。
Creditor k would like to be able to go after the corporation that k own shares in. Okay. Now mind you k already has an economic interest in the company represented by his shares, his or her shares. Creditor k in addition to the assets in the green, if we were more accurate, we would put the shares over, in case asset pool, too, because the shares themselves are the assets. But suppose that small value of the shares themselves is not sufficient for creditor of k okay? And the corporation has lots of money. We think. The predator is now seeking to disregard this kind of line that you see in the middle, which represents this limited liability shield and go after the assets of the corporation. Because remember, without any change in the rule or without this exception, the general rule is that k and m do not own. They do not have a property interest, legal or equitable in the assets of the corporation.
债权人 k 希望能够追究 k 拥有股份的公司。好。现在请注意,您已经在他的股份、他或她的股份所代表的公司中拥有经济利益。债权人 k 除了绿色的资产外,如果我们更准确的话,我们会把股票放在上面,以防资产池也一样,因为股票本身就是资产。但是,假设股票本身的少量价值不足以成为 k 的债权人,好吗?而且这家公司有很多钱。我们思考。掠夺者现在正试图无视你在中间看到的这种线,它代表了这个有限责任盾牌,并追捕公司的资产。因为请记住,如果规则没有任何变化或没有此例外,一般规则是 k 和 m 不拥有。他们在公司的资产中没有合法或衡平法的财产权益。
So unless we come up with some other way, creditor k creditor of k cannot just sue the corporation on k's debts, right? Again, it can go either way. So you have to kind of think in both directions as you're looking at these cases. So let's take an example from the case of guilford, which I think will be relevant to you, thinking about tutorial. There's a plaintiff corporation of the employer here who had an employee mister horn, and he was fired in november of 1931. He set up his own company with his wife, an employee. There are also shareholders and born as a director. Again, everyone is wearing multiple hats, but the . is, he leaves his first job and he says his own company and he himself was bound by a noncompete agreement.
因此,除非我们想出其他方法,否则 k 的债权人 k 不能就 k 的债务起诉公司,对吧?同样,它可以是两种方式。所以,在研究这些案例时,你必须从两个方向思考。那么让我们以 guilford 为例,我认为这与你有关,考虑教程。这里有一家雇主的原告公司,他有一名员工 Horn 先生,他于 1931 年 11 月被解雇。他与身为雇员的妻子成立了自己的公司。还有股东,他们是作为董事出生的。同样,每个人都身兼数职,但 .是的,他辞去了他的第一份工作,他说他自己的公司,他自己也受竞业禁止协议的约束。
He agreed and he was well aware that this contract prevented him from competing with the company that he just left. And you can see the clause from the employment agreement in the middle, and he wasn't allowed to go after and solicit other employees either. And this is very common that you have both of these obligations and noncompete obligation and non solicitation. The person who's leaving doesn't steal all the other friends and employees to go with them and then leave the employer in trouble. So horne knew he couldn't do this himself. So what did he do? Again, he sets up his own company, and then the company goes. And so as its employees from the employer, and then the former employer sues and says foreign company is violating this noncompete. And what does mister horne say? Mister horne says, no, this is my contract. It was binding on me. It's not a contract of the company. The company is a separate legal person and can do whatever it wants.
他同意了,而且他很清楚这份合同阻止了他与他刚刚离开的公司竞争。你可以看到中间雇佣协议的条款,他也不被允许去追捕和招揽其他员工。您同时承担这些义务以及竞业禁止义务和禁止招揽是很常见的。要离开的人不会偷走所有其他朋友和员工与他们一起去,然后让雇主陷入困境。所以 horne 知道他自己做不到。那么他做了什么呢?他又成立了自己的公司,然后公司就走了。因此,雇主的员工,然后前雇主起诉并说外国公司违反了竞业禁止。霍恩先生怎么说呢?霍恩先生说,不,这是我的合同。它对我有约束力。这不是公司的合同。公司是一个独立的法人,可以做任何它想做的事。
So how did the court resolve this? The court here considered a number of arguments. And in our veil piercing cases, you will often see that the parties raise multiple arguments and you should do the same in practice, because as we'll see, veil piercing doctrine is really messy. You don't want your client to just be, depending on that, the court will agree with you to grant this big exception in a very messy area of the law.
那么法院是如何解决这个问题的呢?法院在这里考虑了一些论点。在我们的面纱穿刺案件中,你经常会看到各方提出多个论点,你在实践中也应该这样做,因为正如我们将看到的,刺纱原则真的很混乱。你不希望你的客户只是,取决于这一点,法院会同意你在一个非常混乱的法律领域批准这个大的例外。
So it's also the case, especially in our earlier cases, that we'll see multiple plans of attack and multiple ways in which the plaintiff might prevail, some of which we just looked at already. And we'll see another example of that in a second. But in this case, the court held that the company was a mere cloak or sham. In other words, horn was doing through the company what he could not do himself. He was using the company to get around this contractual obligation. Therefore, the court said the court was gonna issue an injunction to block both born and the warren company from violating this non solicitation contract. The contractual obligation of the person was extended to the company that he owned as well.
因此,尤其是在我们之前的案件中,我们会看到多种攻击计划和原告可能获胜的多种方式,其中一些我们已经看过了。我们稍后会看到另一个例子。但在本案中,法院认为该公司只是一个披风或骗局。换句话说,霍恩通过公司做了他自己做不到的事情。他利用公司来规避这一合同义务。因此,法院表示,法院将发布禁令,以阻止 born 和 warren 公司违反这份禁止招揽合同。该人的合同义务也延伸到他拥有的公司。
The second thing that the court said had to do with veil piercing, and it gives us our first indication of a veil piercing doctrine. In this class. It says the corporate veil can only be pierced if there is both control of the company by the wrongdoers and some kind of impropriety, some kind of abuse of the company as a device or facade. Is this idea of something you hide behind a like a fake cover of some kind right to conceal wrongdoing.
法院所说的第二件事与刺穿面纱有关,它给了我们刺穿面纱原则的第一个迹象。在这个类中。它说,只有当不法分子同时控制了公司,并且存在某种不当行为,即某种滥用公司作为工具或幌子时,才能刺破公司的面纱。你隐藏在某种假掩护后面的想法是不是正确地掩盖了不法行为。
Now, before you pay a lot of attention and circle and highlight this, the law has shifted, but for right now, this is a starting point in thinking about what a veil piercing rule might be. I'm gonna leave it to you after class to go back and reread the slides. Think about what we've said today. Look at the textbook, look at your cases for this week, and figure out what is the current state of the law on bill piercing. But this is one way that the courts have articulated this. And this is, again, a fairly early case. And it said that you need several things. You need control of the company. You need impropriety, what kind of impropriety? What kind of abuse of the corporate form? Yeah, 1 type of abuse that we see here is concealing wrongdoing. You're hiding the wrongdoing. The employer was lucky. He figured out you were doing this, because it was a separate legal person you were using. We're hiding your violation through this company.
现在,在你大量关注和强调这一点之前,法律已经发生了变化,但就目前而言,这是考虑什么是面纱刺穿规则的起点。我打算在课后让你回去重读幻灯片。想想我们今天所说的。看看教科书,看看你本周的案例,弄清楚关于比尔穿孔的法律的现状如何。但这是法院阐明这一点的一种方式。而这又是一个相当早期的案例。它说你需要几样东西。你需要控制公司。你需要不正当,什么样的不正当?什么样的滥用公司形式?是的,我们在这里看到的一种虐待是隐瞒不法行为。你在隐瞒错误行为。雇主很幸运。他发现你在做这件事,因为你正在使用一个单独的法人。我们通过这家公司隐藏您的违规行为。
So again, for you, all I want you to consider is this really a vale pearson case? Or this a case of direct liability, or looking ahead to next week, which I think is maybe even more helpful. Is this a case where mister horn is using the company, just like any other agency relationship, an agent acting through someone else, and that's what agency means. We'll be looking at that next week. If I want to think of putting these two units together, what's the rationale for getting at a horn company? But that's guilford. So again, just be aware that when you see cases involving these kind of facts, it might be aaa situation to argue for a veil piercing. Okay? But if there also might be other basis for liability, either direct liability or maybe vicarious liability on some kind of an agency theory, as we'll talk about more next week, the hong kong courts, I will just give you a preview, have been a little bit more generous in the area of veil piercing relative to the uk courts.
所以,再一次,对于你来说,我希望你考虑的真的是 Vale Pearson 案吗?或者这是一个直接责任的案例,或者展望下周,我认为这可能更有帮助。这是 Horn 先生利用公司的情况吗,就像任何其他代理关系一样,代理人通过其他人行事,这就是代理的意思。我们将在下周进行研究。如果我想考虑将这两个单元放在一起,那么进入喇叭公司的理由是什么?但那是吉尔福德。所以,再说一次,请注意,当你看到涉及这类事实的案例时,争论要穿面纱可能是 aaa 情况。好?但是,如果可能还有其他责任基础,无论是直接责任还是某种代理理论上的替代责任,正如我们下周将详细讨论的那样,香港法院,我只是给大家一个预览,相对于英国法院,在面纱穿孔方面要慷慨一些。
And this is an open and active area of the law, which the hong kong courts have not yet joined or adopted the uk approach, which means for you that it's an active test question. Because we love to ask you questions about unsettled areas of the law and veil piercing is one of them. Okay? So when you start to feel confused that everything is messy, it's just the reality of the way the law is in this area. So just flag it for yourself. Okay? So one case where we see kind of a broader perspective toward bill pierce saying in hong kong is that liu huang ying case and it's really long and you can probably skim some of the facts. But the legal opinion, the judgment itself is quite interesting, and it's helpful for two things. This case is assigned here because two different bases of a liability were asserted by the plaintiff. And the court said that the plaintiff wins on both of them can win on both of them.
这是一个开放和活跃的法律领域,香港法院尚未加入或采用英国的方法,这意味着对您来说,这是一个活跃的测试问题。因为我们喜欢问你关于法律中未解决的领域的问题,而面纱穿孔就是其中之一。好?因此,当你开始对一切都是混乱感到困惑时,这就是法律在这个领域的现实。所以就自己标记它吧。好?因此,我们看到一个案例对 Bill Pierce 在香港的发言有更广泛的视角,那就是 Liu Huang Ying 案,它真的很长,你可能可以略过一些事实。但法律意见、判决本身非常有趣,它对两件事都有帮助。本案被安排在这里,因为原告主张了两种不同的责任基础。而法院表示,原告在两者上都赢,可以同时在两者上都赢。
One is veil piercing, and the other is under tobo. This is an application of the transfer of business ordinance, because exactly of what happened you can see here on the slide. This is a transfer of business case. This is precisely the kind of case that toefl was designed for. Okay? Because what happened here is that the plaintiff had this kind of monopoly, right? To handle certain kinds of certification applications across the border between hong kong and shenzhen. And it turned out kind of lucrative a lot of money was made from it. Okay. However, there was a kind of debt that was entered into. And so plaintiff here has a debt claim against company c which is the company that it was doing business with and have the rights to conduct this kind of business. So company c is in debts of plaintiff p however, by the time that the judgment came down and plaintiff tries to collect the money, what has company c done?
一个是面纱穿孔,另一个是在 tobo 下。这是对商业转让条例的适用,因为您可以在幻灯片上看到所发生的事情。这是一个商业转移案例。这正是 TOEFL 专为这种情况而设计的。好?因为这里发生的事情是原告有这种垄断的,对吧?处理某些类型的跨境香港和深圳认证申请。事实证明,从中赚了很多钱,这有点有利可图。好。然而,有一种债务被订立了。因此,这里的原告对 c 公司提出了债务索赔,c 公司是与其有业务往来的公司,有权开展此类业务。因此,C 公司欠了原告 p 的债务,但是,当判决下达并且原告试图收回款项时,C 公司做了什么?
In fact company c did not do it. It was the controlling parent, which we got up here in shenzhen huaxin, state enterprises had a kind of interest in these companies and controlled company c by the time the judgment was down and money was owed what happened to all the money in company c it was all moved to comedy.
事实上,C 公司并没有这样做。它是控股的母公司,我们在深圳华信这里找到的,国有企业在这些公司中有一些利益,控制了 C 公司,当判决下来,欠款时,C 公司的所有钱都被转移到了喜剧上。
And then it was moved to company e and not just the money, but all the assets. And if you read the case, you find out that all these companies can cd and e continue to operate out of the same space for the same employees, this same like numbers on the documents, like nothing's changed. They just like change their name officially and legally. Why? Because there's this debt that they don't want to pay, right?
然后它被转移到 e 公司,不仅仅是钱,还有所有资产。如果你读过这个案例,你会发现所有这些公司都可以继续在同一个空间里为相同的员工运营,就像文件上的数字一样,就像什么都没有改变一样。他们只是喜欢正式合法地更改他们的名字。为什么?因为他们不想偿还这笔债务,对吧?
Okay, so the question, is this a kind of concealment case? Because we're trying to hide the debtor, like we're trying to hide the assets, or are we trying to evade a preexisting legal obligation? So you can read the case and look at how the court thinks about this. But the plaintiff brought two claims, and really the fact context is not that unusual. Some of you may have heard about stories like this elsewhere. Okay? This is a kind of thing that we call in the literature asset stripping. This is an asset stripping transaction, meaning that those in control find a way to either pay themselves or steal, okay? Or avoid paying debts. So they strip or steal the assets from one company and move it to another. This is an asset stripping case. The owner, again, here appears to be trying to avoid paying the plaintiff through this kind of structure. Okay? On the veil piercing claim, the question is, can the judgment that has already been sought against c can it be brought against d and or e so that's the vale pearson question.
好的,那么问题来了,这是一种隐瞒案件吗?因为我们试图隐藏债务人,就像我们试图隐藏资产一样,或者我们试图逃避先前存在的法律义务?所以你可以阅读这个案子,看看法院是怎么想的。但原告提出了两项索赔,实际上,事实背景并不那么罕见。你们中的一些人可能在其他地方听说过这样的故事。好?这就是我们在文献中称之为 asset stripping 的一种事情。这是一种资产剥离交易,这意味着控制者会想办法要么付钱要么偷窃,好吗?或者避免偿还债务。因此,他们剥离或窃取一家公司的资产并将其转移到另一家公司。这是一个资产剥离案例。业主在这里似乎再次试图避免通过这种结构向原告付款。好?关于刺穿面纱的索赔,问题是,已经寻求的针对 c 的判决是否可以针对 d 和/或 e,这就是 vale Pearson 问题。
So we have a common controller here, but c and d are more in a transfer or transferee relationship, but they still are two separate legal entities. This is kind of a broader, maybe more flexible application of veil piercing.
所以我们这里有一个共同的控制者,但 c 和 d 更像是转让或受让人关系,但它们仍然是两个独立的法人实体。这是一种更广泛、也许更灵活的面纱穿孔应用。
But we're gonna start with the taobao argument under the transfer of business ordinance, which we saw already what the court has to decide in this case is whether what happened here is, in fact, a transfer of the business. Was it enough to count as a transaction under tobo? Because if it is that it's easy, if a transfer has happened, then the transfer or is automatically liable unless you're in the safe harbor, and they did nothing to be in the safe harbor.
但是,我们将从《营业权转让条例》下的淘宝争论开始,我们已经看到,在本案中,法院必须决定的是,这里发生的事情是否真的是业务转让。在 tobo 下算作交易就足够了吗?因为如果这很容易,如果发生了转移,那么转移或自动承担责任,除非你在安全港,并且他们没有做任何事情来进入安全港。
So easy answer. If this is a transfer of the business. So again, this is a common law explanation for all of us of what does it mean to have a transfer of the business under taobao? I don't have the text up here on the slide because I want you to go back and take a look at it, but you can see paragraph 75 for yourself. Okay? And what the court said is that when we have a transfer of the assets or any assets, really, it is some evidence of transfer of business. But it's not the final answer. We need to know something more about those assets. We also need to know about the identity of the transferor and the transferee are the same. Are they related? Does it look like this was done for the purpose of fraud? So there's some other factors that are not in the statute that the court says are important to look at. In this case, the court took note of the fact that the business, cd and e were running was literally run out of the same place with the same people, with the same equipment. Like they really didn't do anything very creative here. And it was clear that the entire business with the fc was actually being run by d and later run by e again, this is kind of an easy case, but the court talks about the factors that would be considered there.
这么简单的回答。如果这是业务转让。所以,这是对我们所有人的普通法解释,淘宝旗下的业务转让意味着什么?我没有在幻灯片上显示文本,因为我想让你回去看一下,但你可以自己看看第 75 段。好?法院说的是,当我们发生资产或任何资产的转让时,实际上是业务转让的一些证据。但这并不是最终的答案。我们需要更多地了解这些资产。我们还需要了解转让人和受让人的身份是相同的。他们有关系吗?这看起来像是为了欺诈目的吗?因此,还有一些其他因素没有出现在法规中,法院表示需要考虑这些因素。在本案中,法院注意到这样一个事实,即 cd 和 e 正在经营的业务实际上是在同一个地方、相同的人、相同的设备之外经营的。就像他们在这里真的没有做任何非常有创意的事情一样。很明显,与 fc 的整个业务实际上是由 d 经营的,后来又由 e 经营,这是一个简单的案例,但法院讨论了在那里考虑的因素。
Okay. And then the court also does, in fact, look at whether there was any notice to the clients, how the transfer was conducted. Did it look like a a normal third party transaction? Or did it look strange? Go back to the case and look at what are the factors that the court looks at to tell whether it's a transfer the business? In case somebody asks you later, here's what happened. How do I know does tobo apply? You might need to do the same analysis. So take a look at what those factors are. The second thing on veil piercing. Okay. The court again, looked at whether and this dating back to some of these earlier cases like guilford, the company was used as a device to conceal the true facts of the situation from the plaintiff and whether it was used to evade legal obligations, because we already had a debt.
好。然后,法院实际上还会查看是否有任何通知客户,以及转移是如何进行的。它看起来像正常的第三方交易吗?还是看起来很奇怪?回到这个案子,看看法院会考虑哪些因素来判断这是否是业务转让?如果以后有人问你,事情是这样的。我怎么知道 tobo 是否适用?您可能需要执行相同的分析。所以看看这些因素是什么。第二件事是关于面纱穿孔。好。法院再次审查了这可以追溯到吉尔福德等一些早期案件,该公司是否被用作向原告隐瞒真实情况的工具,以及它是否被用来逃避法律义务,因为我们已经有债务。
There was already a judgment, and this whole thing was designed to avoid or evade that preexisting legal obligation. You can see that, okay? We have kind of several things going on here. And the court said this is an easy case. In fact, this is a classic case of veil piercing. What are we going to do? We are going to allow d and e to be held liable for the debt that c os on a veil piercing argument.
已经有了一个判决,而这整件事都是为了避免或逃避先前存在的法律义务。你可以看到,好吗?我们这里有几件事正在发生。法院表示,这是一个简单的案子。事实上,这是面纱穿孔的经典案例。我们该怎么办?我们将允许 d 和 e 对 c os 在面纱刺穿论点上的债务负责。
Now, again, this is not a shareholder relationship, but these are kind of sister companies under common control. This is actually not a one of the more standard contexts for bill piercing. We talked about bill piercing between the shareholder and the company, right? These are companies at the same level under common control, a little bit more complicated, a little bit more indirect. But the court says easy case in hong kong for veil piercing. Now we get to the classic case of veil piercing, which will confuse all of us a little bit longer. This is the pressed case. And in the press case, the court makes a very important legal distinction between concealing and evading. So the two things that either of which or both of which made the court in hong kong think we can use veil piercing. These two situations are distinguished. In the press case, the uk has taken a narrower approach.
现在,再说一次,这不是股东关系,而是共同控制下的姊妹公司。这实际上并不是 bill piercing 的更标准的上下文之一。我们谈到了股东和公司之间的账单穿孔,对吧?这些公司处于同一级别的共同控制下,稍微复杂一点,稍微间接一点。但法院表示,在香港,面纱穿孔的案件很容易。现在我们来看看面纱穿孔的经典案例,它会让我们所有人困惑更长的时间。这是压制的案例。在新闻案件中,法院在法律上对隐瞒和逃避进行了非常重要的区分。所以这两件事让香港的法院认为我们可以使用面纱穿孔。这两种情况是有区别的。在新闻案例中,英国采取了更狭隘的方法。
So press versus petrol is the case, as you can see, involving an unhappy couple. And they were unhappy before the divorce, but now they're divorced and now they're fighting over assets. The wife wants assets that the husband appears to have hidden. He is him then very creatively using a corporate form, not just one corporate form, but many complex corporate structures that even the court can't figure out in which he is not even going to give information or evidence to to the court to help the court figure out.
因此,正如你所看到的,新闻与汽油是涉及一对不幸的夫妇的情况。他们在离婚前并不快乐,但现在他们离婚了,现在他们正在争夺资产。妻子想要丈夫似乎隐藏的资产。然后,他非常创造性地使用公司形式,不仅仅是一种公司形式,而是许多复杂的公司结构,即使是法院也无法弄清楚,他甚至不打算向法院提供信息或证据来帮助法院弄清楚。
So the scheme is all very complicated, but there's clearly assets there in company xy and z what's the court going to do? H has created these offshore companies to hide assets from his wife in anticipation that they might get divorced someday. Maybe that's what gave rise to the divorce. I don't know.
所以这个计划都非常复杂,但显然 xy 和 z 公司有资产,法院会怎么做?H 创建这些离岸公司是为了向他的妻子隐藏资产,以期他们有一天可能会离婚。也许这就是导致离婚的原因。我不知道。
So the question is, can you veil peers in this kind of concealment case where there's an intent to hide things from aa claimant, in this case, from the wife and to conceal the true assets in a corporate form? Or is this an evasion case where there's an intent to frustrate preexisting legal liability? And does it matter? The wife claims that the seven properties that are held by these companies belong to the husband and that the husbands that they should be considered the husband's assets.
所以问题是,在这种隐瞒案件中,如果有人打算向 aa 索赔人隐瞒事情,在这种情况下,向妻子隐瞒事情,并以公司形式隐藏真实资产,您能否掩盖同行?或者这是一个逃避案件,意图挫败先前存在的法律责任?这重要吗?妻子声称这些公司持有的七处财产属于丈夫,丈夫认为这些财产应被视为丈夫的资产。
So is arguing for veil piercing. So using the assets of the company to satisfy the obligations of the husband. And then there's a kind of secondary issue here, too, under the matrimonial kind of under marriage law, which knowing how hard veal piercing is, the lawyers here said this is a domestic law case. This is a family law case. And under the matrimonial clauses, veil piercing works more broadly. So they're trying to argue for an easier case of veil piercing, because this is involving family law. The court ultimately said there's no distinction. This is really a corporate question that family law talks about. There are issue here is issue one, whether the corporate veil should be pierced or lifted, such that the property held by these offshore companies in which h is the sole shareholder.
主张穿面纱也是如此。因此,利用公司的资产来履行丈夫的义务。然后,这里也有一个次要问题,在婚姻法下,知道小牛肉穿孔有多难,这里的律师说这是一个国内法案件。这是一个家庭法案件。根据婚姻条款,纱纱穿孔的作用更广泛。因此,他们试图争论一个更容易的面纱穿孔案例,因为这涉及家庭法。法院最终表示没有区别。这确实是家庭法所讨论的公司问题。这里有一个问题,即是否应该揭开或揭开公司面纱,以便这些 h 是唯一股东的离岸公司持有的财产。
We want to pierce the corporate veil between h and h is companies like solomon and solomon company. Okay? Can we pierce the veil there so that the wife can reach these assets to satisfy the personal liability of the husband? In this case, shareholders liability, in a sense. The court said that it was rejecting much of the earlier veil pearson law, and it made, again, a distinction between concealment cases and evasion cases. And this is the state of the law in the uk your question is, first of all, what's the implications of the uk rule? And secondly, is this something that the hong kong court should follow? The probably are likely to follow it. Hong kong, hong kong often follows the uk and matters such as these, but it hasn't done so yet.
我们想刺破 h 和 h 之间的公司面纱,比如 Solomon 和 Solomon Company。好?我们能否刺破那里的面纱,让妻子能够接触到这些资产来满足丈夫的个人责任?在这种情况下,从某种意义上说,股东责任。最高法院表示,它拒绝了早期的面纱皮尔逊法的大部分内容,并再次区分了隐瞒案件和逃避案件。这就是英国的法律状况,您的问题是,首先,英国规则有什么影响?其次,香港法院应该遵循这一点吗?他们很可能会效仿它。香港,香港经常跟随英国和诸如此类的事情,但它还没有这样做。
So here's what the court said. They said, if the analysis is, is the company being used as a facade or a sham or kind of a false front, if that's the legal and the basis of the legal analysis, it's too confusing.
所以法院是这么说的。他们说,如果分析是,公司是被用作门面、假货还是虚假的幌子,如果这是法律和法律分析的基础,那就太令人困惑了。
The facts get very, very messy. And how do we know what was the purpose or the intent of the person in creating this company? Okay? It seems to be the two distinct principles lie behind these terms, and it has been too confusing to fail to distinguish them. We must distinguish between the concealment principle. On the one hand, the evasion principle on the other says the concealment principle has no legal content and should not really involve veil piercing at all. Concealment just means we're in interjecting a company. We're creating a company or several companies to hide the identity of the real actors. And that doesn't stop a court from identifying those actors. A court should be able to figure out who are the legal entities involved. The fact that there's aa whole line of legal entities doesnt matter. Concealment should not be relevant. Okay? In these cases, the court is not disregarding the facade, but just looking behind it to find the facts that the corporate structure is concealing.
事实变得非常非常混乱。我们怎么知道创建这家公司的目的或意图是什么?好?这些术语背后似乎隐藏着两个截然不同的原则,而且无法区分它们太令人困惑了。我们必须区分隐瞒原则。一方面,规避原则说隐瞒原则没有法律内容,根本不应该真正涉及面纱穿孔。隐瞒只是意味着我们正在插入一家公司。我们正在创建一家或几家公司来隐藏真实参与者的身份。这并不能阻止法院确定这些行为者。法院应该能够弄清楚谁是所涉及的法律实体。有一整套法人实体的事实并不重要。隐瞒不应该是相关的。好?在这些情况下,法院并不是无视门面,而只是在幕后寻找公司结构所掩盖的事实。
For example, is the corporate structure being used to hide this employment restriction? Or is it real being used to hide a certain relationship between certain parties? Okay? The courts of these concealed cases should not be veil piercing cases at all. We should not use veil piercing in those cases. Instead, it should be limited to cases involving evasion. What's an evasion case? An evasion case is a case where the court may disregard the corporate veil. If there is a legal right against the controller, a legal writing against the person in control of it that is independent of the company's involvement. A company is interposed on purpose, so that the separate legal personality of a company will defeat that legal right or frustrate its enforcement.
例如,公司结构是否被用来隐藏这种就业限制?还是真的被用来隐藏某些方之间的某种关系?好?这些隐蔽案件的法庭根本不应该是揭开面纱的案件。在这些情况下,我们不应该使用面纱穿孔。相反,它应该仅限于涉及逃避的案件。什么是逃税案件?逃税案件是法院可以无视公司面纱的案件。如果存在针对控制者的合法权利,则针对控制者的法律书面文件,该法律文书独立于公司的参与。公司是故意介入的,因此公司的独立法人资格将破坏该合法权利或阻碍其执行。
So what's all that mean? It's kind of like that in a horny in case where you already have a debt, you already have liability. Once that liability is out there, you create a company so that maybe you won't have to pay, because the company is a separate legal person. That's an evasion case. There's already a legal liability out there in the world. Okay?
那么这是什么意思呢?这有点像在角质中,如果您已经有债务,那么您已经负有责任。一旦责任存在,您就会创建一家公司,这样您可能就不必付款,因为该公司是一个独立的法人。这是一个逃避案件。世界上已经存在法律责任。好?
说话人2 01:23:20
Nana.
娜娜。
说话人1 01:23:22
So again, court continues. Lord sumption says there is a limited principle of english law that applies when a person is under an existing legal obligation, or there's an existing liability. So again, it's not limited to where there's a court judgment. It can apply also where there's an existing legal obligation, and the person deliberately evades the obligation or deliberately invades the enforcement.
所以,法庭再次继续。Lord sumption 表示,当一个人承担现有法律义务或存在现有责任时,英国法律有一项有限原则适用。所以,这不仅限于有法院判决的地方。它也可以适用于存在现有法律义务,并且该人故意逃避该义务或故意侵入执行的情况。
说话人2 01:23:47
Okay?
好?
说话人1 01:23:49
If by creating a company under their control, in that case, the court may pierce the corporate veil for the purpose and only the purpose of depriving either the company or its controller, because it can go both directions, right? All of the advantage that they would otherwise have obtained by companies separate legal personality. If it is not necessary to pierce the corporate veil, it is not appropriate to do. So. I highlighted the last one, because it's very important. So if the learning points here are concealment cases, court says no veil piercing, invasion cases limited. Feel piercing, it's possible. However, if it is not necessary to pierce the corporate veil, we don't do so. It should almost never happen, because there's usually another basis as in the only we have togo, or maybe we have accessory liability, or maybe we have direct liability, or maybe we have some other theory of liability. And if we can use any of those, let's not use veal piercing.
如果通过创建一家由他们控制的公司,在这种情况下,法院可以刺破公司的面纱,目的只是为了剥夺公司或其控制者的权利,因为它可以双向发展,对吧?他们本来可以通过公司获得的所有优势,独立的法人资格。如果不需要刺破公司的面纱,那就不合适。所以。我强调了最后一个,因为它非常重要。所以如果这里的学习点是隐瞒案件,法院说没有面纱穿孔,入侵案件有限。感觉刺痛,这是可能的。但是,如果不需要刺破公司的面纱,我们就不会这样做。它几乎不应该发生,因为通常有另一个基础,比如我们唯一需要做的事情,或者我们可能有从属责任,或者我们可能有直接责任,或者我们有一些其他的责任理论。如果我们可以使用其中任何一个,我们就不要使用小牛肉穿孔。
So the english court here is a significantly narrow the doctrine. Okay. Now, if any of you want to know what happened to the unhappy couple here, the court rejected the veil piercing argument in favor of the wife, but the court was very, very unhappy with the husband and the husband's behavior in this litigation. And there's a lot of very funny and colorful language that the court uses about this husband and his counsel. However, the court says there was no evidence that these companies were set up to block the wife's claim, okay? They were just set up. I I ii don't know if I would have gone there. I I might have gone the other way like, okay, we're unhappy. I'm gonna hide all my assets, but the court said there was no in preexisting legal claims. So I leave it to you whether you agree or not. However, the court said that the husband had legal and beneficial ownership. So it used a kind of constructive trust argument.
因此,英国法院在这里是一个明显狭窄的学说。好。现在,如果你们中的任何人想知道这里这对不幸的夫妇发生了什么,法院驳回了有利于妻子的刺破面纱的论点,但法院对丈夫和丈夫在这场诉讼中的行为非常非常不满。法院对这位丈夫和他的律师使用了很多非常有趣和生动的语言。然而,法院表示,没有证据表明这些公司的成立是为了阻止妻子的索赔,好吗?他们只是被设置好了。我我不知道我是否会去那里。我可能走了另一条路,比如,好吧,我们不开心。我打算隐藏我的所有资产,但法院说没有先前存在的法律索赔。所以,无论你同意与否,我都留给你。然而,法院表示,丈夫拥有合法和实益所有权。因此,它使用了一种建设性的信任论点。
Now this is not the way I think most judges would resolve this case. The way most judges would resolve the case is to say that the husband clearly has a direct, proprietary property right in the shares themselves in the shares of these companies. Company xy and zh is the shareholder. H holds shares. The shares represent 100 % of the value of these companies, because he's the only shareholder. Okay, so why not just give the wife? The shares? Then you've given her all the assets. And the reason was because in this case, nobody could figure out where the assets were, how many companies there were, what's the value of all this? And it would have gotten everyone nowhere.
现在,我认为这不是大多数法官解决此案的方式。大多数法官解决此案的方式是说,丈夫显然对这些公司的股份本身拥有直接的所有权。公司 xy 和 zh 是股东。H 持有股份。这些股票代表了这些公司价值的 100%,因为他是唯一的股东。好吧,那为什么不直接给妻子呢?股票?然后你已经把所有的资产都给了她。原因是因为在这种情况下,没有人能弄清楚资产在哪里,有多少家公司,这一切的价值是什么?而且每个人都会无处可去。
Because of the facts of this case were confusing, the court didn't go that route and say this is all about share ownership, and it uses this kind of legal and beneficial ownership argument and a kind of constructive trust argument. So the court was concerned that it wouldn't be able to enforce kind of the easier answer. Okay? It did draw an adverse inference from the husband's behavior in this litigation and held again that the assets not the companies themselves, but the assets of those companies.
由于本案的事实令人困惑,法院没有走那条路说这完全是关于股份所有权的,它使用了这种合法和受益所有权的论点和一种建设性的信托论点。因此,法院担心它无法执行更简单的答案。好?它确实从丈夫在这场诉讼中的行为中得出了不利的推论,并再次认为资产不是公司本身,而是这些公司的资产。
Maybe it's real property. Some island, somewhere, I don't know, were beneficially owned by the husband. And as long as those were known, the wife could have a claim, so the wife wins, but not on a vale pearson ground.
也许它是不动产。我不知道某个岛屿,某个地方,是丈夫实益拥有的。只要知道这些,妻子就可以提出索赔,所以妻子赢了,但不能以皮尔逊河谷为由。
说话人2 01:27:12
Right?
右?
说话人1 01:27:14
So that's where we are there. So the question is, what about after press? So press is your main case on uk law. Okay? But what's the state of veil piercing today? So sometimes we ask you about this on an exam. There's a couple of cases we have here that really are here only to illustrate what comes next or how the courts dealt with this. Later, what have they said about pressed? One of these is the ramsey case. The shipping case involves a very complex kind of structure of charter parties, which are kind of like separate companies.
所以这就是我们的地方。所以问题是,印后呢?因此,新闻是你在英国法律上的主要案例。好?但是今天刺破面纱的状况如何?所以有时我们会在考试中问你这个问题。我们这里有几个案例,它们实际上只是为了说明接下来会发生什么,或者法院是如何处理的。后来,他们对 press 有什么看法?其中之一是拉姆齐案。航运案件涉及一种非常复杂的租船合同结构,它们有点像独立的公司。
But the court reads press to say that we can only pierce the corporate veil when a person is under an existing legal obligation or liability. This is the quote we saw before. And the court in ramsey notes that two of the law lords did not want to prevent further development of the law. They kind of left the door open to other kinds of cases where bill piercing might be appropriate.
但法院读到新闻界说,只有当一个人承担现有的法律义务或责任时,我们才能刺破公司的面纱。这是我们之前看到的引文。拉姆齐案的法院指出,其中两位大法官不想阻止法律的进一步发展。他们为其他类型的情况敞开了大门,在这些情况下,穿喙可能是合适的。
Okay? And lady hale, her opinion also seems to be to the same effect. So we have three judges that seem to allow bill piercing doctor to stay alive. So that's where english law is. Okay? But it's a little bit difficult to predict what the direction will be. Because we have this kind of distinction between concealment and evasion, but lord neuberger, who ii think, might still be serving here on our quarter final here, at least, was recently, was of the view that there is a lack of any coherent principle in the application of the doctrine. In other words, this is a messy doctrine. It's very difficult for the courts and lord walker. Okay? Said it was not really a doctrine at all, because it's not coherent. It's just a term that we use in the court. It's not actually a doctrine of law, even. Okay.
好?而黑尔夫人,她的意见似乎也达到了同样的效果。所以我们有三位法官似乎允许穿钞医生活着。所以这就是英国法律的意义所在。好?但预测方向会是什么有点困难。因为我们在隐瞒和逃避之间有这种区别,但 Neuberger 勋爵,我认为,至少在我们这里的四分之一决赛中,他最近认为在应用该原则时缺乏任何连贯的原则。换句话说,这是一个混乱的教义。这对法院和沃克勋爵来说非常困难。好?说这根本不是一个真正的教条,因为它不连贯。这只是我们在法庭上使用的一个术语。它甚至实际上不是一个法律学说。好。
And then lady hale, her call this in a question senate, not sure whether it's possible to classify all these cases in a concealment or evasion. So she could have raised the question as to whether this distinction is even the right distinction to make. Maybe there's some cases that involve both. Maybe there are some cases that we would say clearly should be veil piercing cases and they don't fit into either box. Again, the judges themselves are have very different views and I think just in these quotes, you can kind of see the range of opinions that really courts of struggle within many jurisdictions. And this is kind of the uk version of it, but I think judges here in hong kong, judges in other common law jurisdictions, but struggle similarly, the other thing is we've got a case called rosendale.
然后是黑尔夫人,她在参议院的质询中称呼这个,不确定是否有可能将所有这些案件归类为隐瞒或逃避。因此,她可能会提出一个问题,即这种区分是否是正确的区分。也许有些情况同时涉及两者。也许有些案件我们显然应该说应该是面纱穿孔案件,但它们不适合任何一个盒子。同样,法官本身也有非常不同的观点,我认为仅从这些引述中,你就可以看到许多司法管辖区内真正需要斗争的法院的意见范围。这有点像英国版,但我认为香港的法官,其他普通法司法管辖区的法官,但都遇到了类似的困难,另一件事是我们有一个名为 Rosendale 的案件。
This one, this one just said, basically, this is such a narrow doctrine after pressed that we're not even sure can we extend it to the second kind of cases? Remember, phil pearson can go in two
这个,这个刚才说的,基本上,这是一个如此狭隘的学说,我们甚至不确定我们是否可以将其扩展到第二种情况?请记住,菲尔·皮尔森 (Phil Pearson) 可以分为两部分
说话人2 01:29:59
directions.
方向。
说话人1 01:30:01
Right? In this case, what we were saying is, can the husband, the husband's liability be satisfied by these corporate assets? So with the debt of the shareholder, that's kind of k and m's debt, the shareholder debt at the top that's pressed. But what about the other direction? What about the case when the company's bankrupt? Can we go after the shareholder? Can we go after k and m that's the other direction that was different facts that pressed. Do you see that there's still an open question, even with pressed about what about this other kind of case the bankrupt company? Can we go after the shareholders for the debt of the company? Lord sumption said he doesn't think so, says i'm gonna go to the bottom, although this is not the occasion for reaching a final view.
右?在这种情况下,我们想说的是,丈夫、丈夫的责任能否通过这些公司资产来满足?所以对于股东的债务,这就是 k 和 m 的债务,即处于最高层的股东债务。但另一个方向呢?当公司破产时怎么办?我们能追究股东吗?我们能否追求 k 和 m,这是另一个方向,这是不同的事实所压迫。您是否看到,即使被追问破产公司这种其他类型的情况如何,您是否看到仍然存在一个悬而未决的问题?我们能否追究股东对公司的债务?sumption 勋爵说他不这么认为,他说我要去往底,尽管现在不是得出最终意见的机会。
Again, this is dicta. We have some doubts. Even if there is an evasion principle in a small residual category of cases that might justify holding the company responsible for the debt or breach of an obligation owned by the controller. So that's the husband impressed. We're not convinced that there's any real place to apply this principle, the opposite direction, to hold a person who owns and controls the company liable for a breach of the company's obligation. Do you see how this further narrows the doctrine? Like maybe we can't go in that other direction? Okay. I'm gonna pause for a little bit. I want you to go back. I want you to reread pressed, take a look at the language, go back to the paragraphs that i've highlighted on the slide, see if you can understand where we're at right now. What all we're dealing with is a single company. Okay? Where this doctrine really bites in the modern world is not in that case, where it really matters is in the context of corporate
同样,这是独裁。我们有一些疑问。即使在一小部分剩余类别的案件中存在逃避原则,也可能证明要求公司对财务控制人拥有的债务或违反义务负责是合理的。所以这就是丈夫印象深刻的地方。我们不相信有任何真正的地方可以应用这一原则,即相反的方向,让拥有和控制公司的人对违反公司义务的行为负责。你看到这如何进一步缩小了这个原则吗?就像我们不能朝着另一个方向发展一样?好。我要暂停一下。我要你回去。我希望你重读一遍,看看语言,回到我在幻灯片上突出显示的段落,看看你是否能理解我们现在所处的位置。我们正在处理的是一家公司。好?这个学说在现代世界真正发挥作用的地方不是在这种情况下,它真正重要的地方是在公司的背景下
说话人2 01:31:56
groups.
组。
说话人1 01:31:57
And corporate groups are really the main structures that all of us are dealing with in the modern world.
企业集团确实是我们所有人在现代世界面临的主要结构。
Anything we buy is produced not by a single company, although small and medium sized businesses and family businesses, employ the most people in all of our societies.
我们购买的任何东西都不是由一家公司生产的,尽管中小型企业和家族企业在我们所有社会中雇用了最多的人口。
So for talking about employment and kind of direct impact on human being, single home businesses, family businesses are hugely important, but in terms of like sheer economic power, like the things all of us buy, we're talking about corporate
因此,要谈论就业和对人类的直接影响,单身家庭企业、家族企业非常重要,但就纯粹的经济实力而言,就像我们所有人购买的东西一样,我们谈论的是企业
说话人2 01:32:26
groups.
组。
说话人1 01:32:27
And this is where the corporate structure is like an exponential tool. It's kind of like nuclear power.
这就是公司结构就像一个指数工具的地方。这有点像核能。
We can make energy at a very small level. We're talking about nuclear, we're talking about exponential reaction. That's what the corporate group allows. Okay? I want us to think about some of these kind of questions. Again, what kind of creditors might be most disadvantaged when dealing with a limited liability entity and specifically which ones cannot protect themselves in advance by contract.
我们可以在非常小的水平上制造能量。我们谈论的是核能,我们谈论的是指数反应。这是企业集团允许的。好?我希望我们思考其中的一些问题。同样,在与有限责任实体打交道时,什么样的债权人可能最不利,特别是哪些债权人无法通过合同提前保护自己。
Are the justifications for a limited liability equally valid when applied to corporate groups? Are there other legal or policy tools that we can use to require companies to bear liability? But don't disregard legal separateness. Can we deal with the limited liability problem and legal separateness in different ways?
有限责任的理由在适用于公司集团时是否同样有效?我们可以使用其他法律或政策工具来要求公司承担责任吗?但不要忽视法律上的独立性。我们能否以不同的方式处理有限责任问题和法律独立性?
Again, who else made their responsibility? So I have a couple of slides here for definition and vocabulary. Okay? And I know some of you are like there's only
同样,还有谁让他们承担责任?所以我在这里有几张幻灯片来介绍定义和词汇。好?我知道你们中的一些人就像只有
说话人2 01:33:26
15
说话人1 01:33:26
minutes left like my brain is full. So hold with me, we've got 22 or three important cases to walk through and i'm gonna leave you with a lot to think about. So just stay with me. Go back to these slides later to get the definitions. I'm not gonna read through them, but i'm telling you what is a holding company, okay? Holding company, I think we can kind of get the concept. The issue is that the holding company is a shareholder. Okay? I want you to put a company now in the place of k and m i'm gonna show you a picture in a minute. We also have in the company's ordinance, a definition of an associated company. Okay? Then the question is, when are companies considered related to each other or associated to each other so that we might consider them part of the same group or corporate family?
还剩几分钟,就像我的大脑已经满了一样。请稍等片刻,我们有 22 到 3 个重要案例要演练,我将留给大家很多思考。所以就跟我在一起吧。稍后返回这些幻灯片以获取定义。我不打算通读它们,但我要告诉你什么是控股公司,好吗?控股公司,我认为我们可以理解这个概念。问题是控股公司是股东。好?我希望你现在把一家公司放在 k 和 m 的位置,我稍后会给你看一张图片。我们在公司条例中也有联营公司的定义。好?那么问题来了,什么时候公司被认为是彼此相关或相互关联的,以便我们可以将它们视为同一集团或公司家族的一部分?
The company's ordinance says that an associated company is a subsidiary, a holding company or a subsidiary of the holding company. So we're starting with kind of those concepts. And then a group of companies means any two or more corporations that have this kind of ownership relationship, a holding company or a shareholder relationship. Okay? And this can go on through several levels also. Okay. But let me just say here is, if you hear I we're not gonna cover in detail, but if you hear the term division of a company, I don't know if any of you have ever worked for a large company. But a division is not a separate legal entity. A subsidiary is also a branch. If you hear the term branch like a branch of a bank, a branch is not considered a separate legal entity for tax or other purposes, but a subsidiary is, okay, so we're talking about subsidiaries and their parent or their shareholder. Okay? So it's actually features of company law that allow these structures in the first place and allow us to create these related companies.
公司的条例规定,关联公司是控股公司的子公司、控股公司或子公司。所以我们从这些概念开始。然后,一组公司是指具有这种所有权关系的任意两个或多个公司,即控股公司或股东关系。好?这也可以通过几个层次进行。好。但我只想说,如果你听到我的话,我们不会详细介绍,但如果你听到公司划分这个词,我不知道你们中是否有人曾经在大公司工作过。但部门不是一个独立的法人实体。子公司也是分支机构。如果您将 branch 一词理解为银行的分行,则分支机构不被视为税务或其他目的的独立法人实体,但子公司是,好吧,我们谈论的是子公司及其母公司或股东。好?因此,实际上是公司法的特点首先允许这些结构,并允许我们创建这些相关公司。
There's a couple ingredients that it requires. Number one, the law of the jurisdiction has to allow for single owner companies. We already know that's possible because we saw the solomon case, right? Then you have to be able to have a single owner company, so you can have a holding company, one owner. You also have to be able to allow a legal entity to own shares in another legal entity that might seem obvious to you. All of us that are solicitors are in corporate practice. We use this all the time, very flexible, but it's not automatic in the law. If you think about it like we needed a legal rule to allow this. Should it be okay? For a non legal person or for a legal person to own shares in another legal person? There's actually a lot of complexity around this in different jurisdictions have some were fewer restrictions on than others, but most countries say, yes, this is okay. All right. Then if you think about it, need to have limited liability at all levels of the corporate group for this structure to be useful and not risky to one of the companies involved.
它需要几种成分。首先,该司法管辖区的法律必须允许单一所有者公司。我们已经知道这是可能的,因为我们看到了所罗门案,对吧?然后你必须能够拥有一家单一的所有者公司,这样你就可以拥有一家控股公司,一个所有者。您还必须能够允许法人实体拥有对您来说似乎显而易见的另一个法人实体的股份。我们所有律师都从事公司业务。我们一直在使用它,非常灵活,但在法律上并不是自动的。如果你想想,我们需要一个法律规则来允许这样做。应该没问题吗?非法人或法人拥有其他法人的股份?实际上,在不同的司法管辖区,这方面有很多复杂性,有些司法管辖区的限制比其他司法管辖区少,但大多数国家都说,是的,这没关系。好吧。然后,如果您考虑一下,需要在企业集团的各个层面承担有限责任,以使这种结构有用并且不会对所涉及的公司之一造成风险。
All the arguments we talked about advantages of limited liability are also the advantages of creating these kind of corporate groups. It's just that it applies kind of at levels of company rather than to people. But these are the three things that together make a corporate group work as a corporate group. What are the problems? This is the structure of royal dutch shell, so we're not just talking about two levels. We're talking about a bunch of levels. And we're about to look at a case involving spdc which is show petroleum development company of nigeria, which operates in nigeria and created the kind of picture you see on the right. This is according to amnesty international. However, nigerian the nigerian company is part of a group of companies that employs 82,000 people in 70 countries. And the ultimate parent, the ultimate headquarters used to be two companies, one in the netherlands, and one in the uk some of you might follow there was climate litigation recently.
我们谈到的所有论点,关于有限责任公司的优势,也是创建这类企业集团的优势。只是它适用于公司层面,而不是个人。但正是这三件事共同构成了一个企业集团。问题是什么?这是荷兰皇家贝壳的结构,所以我们不仅仅是在谈论两个层次。我们谈论的是一堆级别。我们即将看一个涉及 spdc 的案例,它显示了尼日利亚石油开发公司,该公司在尼日利亚开展业务,并创造了您在右侧看到的那种图片。这是根据国际特赦组织的说法。然而,尼日利亚公司是一家在 82,000 个国家/地区拥有 70 名员工的公司集团的一部分。最终的母公司,最终的总部曾经是两家公司,一家在荷兰,一家在英国,你们中的一些人可能会关注最近发生了气候诉讼。
And as a result of losing an amazing first case in involving climate liability, royal dutch shell stopped being dutch and incorporated in the uk and there's now just one single parent, but it's the same corporate structure.
由于在涉及气候责任的第一起案件中败诉,Royal Dutch Shell 不再是荷兰人,而是在英国注册成立,现在只有一个母公司,但它的公司结构是相同的。
And in pictures, it looks like this is called an organizational chart. And it's only a small picture of the complexity. If you look online, you can find much more complex pictures. But I like this one because it labels everything for you. So we have shareholders at the top. We have parent companies. The parent companies themselves are the shareholders of the holding companies. The holding companies don't do any operations. So the whole purpose of the holding companies is to be in a certain jurisdiction, so that a certain law will apply usually tax law. The netherlands of the tax haven just like hong kong. Okay? Then we have shell petroleum in the uk we have shell petroleum in the us because its usually helpful to keep the us off by itself because it also has very strange law involving 50 states. And it gets kind of complicated. So it has its own holding company. Under that we have service companies that actually do things. And then below that, we have operating companies that actually are on the ground doing things in 130 different countries.
在图片中,这看起来像是组织结构图。而这只是复杂性的一小部分。如果你在网上看,你可以找到更复杂的图片。但我喜欢这个,因为它为你标记了一切。所以我们的股东处于最高层。我们有母公司。母公司本身是控股公司的股东。控股公司不做任何业务。因此,控股公司的全部目的是在某个司法管辖区内,以便通常适用特定的法律税法。荷兰是避税天堂,就像香港一样。好?然后我们在英国有壳牌石油公司,我们在美国有壳牌石油公司,因为它通常有助于单独阻止美国,因为它也有涉及 50 个州的非常奇怪的法律。而且事情变得有点复杂。所以它有自己的控股公司。在此之下,我们有真正做事的服务公司。然后,我们有一些运营公司,实际上在 130 个不同的国家/地区开展业务。
How does limited liability apply? How does veil pierced piercing apply here? Question one, if oil spills are caused by shell nigeria at the sub one level, down at the very bottom in the blue box, should the ultimate parent, royal dutch shell in the uk be responsible? Question two, what about those intermediate subsidiaries? What about the green boxes? What about the blue boxes? At the next level? Should those companies be responsible? Is it legal to structure a business group like this so that each subsidiary owns certain assets or operates in a single jurisdiction? What if sub one at the bottom incorporates another company after there's an accident and transfers all the assets to the new company should just a new company be responsible. Okay? Should the ultimate parent be responsible? That's the liu huangyan case. Should we treat companies under the same business group as a single legal entity or economic entity? And does it matter? Is this whole thing? Concealment? Is it a facade or a sham involved a lot of lawyer time to set it up? I will tell you that that we saw that the prior cases don't allow for veal piercing if it's just concealment by a lot of complexity.
有限责任如何适用?面纱穿孔在这里如何应用?问题一,如果漏油是由尼日利亚壳牌引起的,在蓝色框的最底部,最终的母公司,英国的荷兰皇家壳牌公司是否应该负责?问题二,那些中间子公司呢?绿色框呢?蓝色框呢?在下一个级别?这些公司应该负责吗?构建这样的业务集团,使每个子公司都拥有某些资产或在单个司法管辖区运营是否合法?如果底部的 sub one 在发生事故后合并了另一家公司,并将所有资产转移到新公司,如果只有一家新公司负责,该怎么办。好?最终的父母应该负责吗?这就是刘黄岩的案子。我们应该将同一业务集团下的公司视为单一法人实体还是经济实体?这重要吗?这是一整件事吗?隐藏?是假象还是假象,需要大量的律师时间来设置它?我会告诉你,我们看到以前的案例不允许小牛肉穿孔,如果它只是通过非常复杂的方式进行隐藏。
Okay. Our subsidiaries, concealment just because it's a subsidiary. So you can see where the press court was going. It should be considered these a single economic unit. And if so, does that have legal consequences? Or should we just ignore the fact that they're operated altogether? And maybe under common control? So the historical perspective on this is that there was a time in which the law looked at separate legal entities of various companies that were related as an economic whole. This is especially the case where the parent owns 100 % of the shares of the subsidiaries and can control everything they do.
好。我们的子公司,仅仅因为它是子公司就隐藏起来。所以你可以看到新闻法庭的走向。应该将这些视为一个单一的经济单位。如果是这样,这会产生法律后果吗?或者我们应该忽略它们完全运作的事实?也许在共同控制下?因此,从历史的角度来看,曾经有一段时间,法律着眼于作为经济整体相关的各种公司的独立法人实体。当母公司拥有子公司 100% 的股份并且可以控制他们所做的一切时,情况尤其如此。
We've got a controller just like the husband impressed.
我们有一个控制器,就像丈夫印象深刻的那样。
说话人2 01:40:42
Okay.
好。
说话人1 01:40:43
These subsidiaries are bound hand and foot to the parent company and must do just what the parent company says. Therefore, we should consider them as single enterprise, and we should impose enterprise liability. One option. Now, let's not tell you right now. It's the earlier version of the law was enterprise wide liability. Different jurisdictions have wrestled with this. So i'm gonna take a minute for us to look at kind of where the law is. Now. So this was the earlier case, single economic unit theory, enterprise theory. Now, let's make this little kind of more concrete. We'll come back to shell in a minute. If this is the case of atoms versus kate, it is super long. I tried to shorten it for you, but it just is really complicated. And you'll see that almost 90 % of the case is about jurisdiction.
这些子公司与母公司手脚相连,必须按照母公司所说的去做。因此,我们应该把他们看作是单一企业,我们应该对企业进行追究责任。一个选项。现在,我们现在不告诉你。该法律的早期版本是企业范围的责任。不同的司法管辖区都在努力解决这个问题。因此,我将花点时间让我们看看法律在哪里。现在。所以这是早期的情况,单一经济单位理论,企业理论。现在,让我们把这个小问题具体化一些。我们稍后会回到 shell。如果这是 atoms 与 kate 的情况,那么它是超长的。我试着为你缩短它,但它真的很复杂。你会看到,几乎 90% 的案件都是关于管辖权的。
Why? Because the same exact problems that we have to do with at the liability. And at the end of the case, we really have to deal with at the front end. Because here we have a company cape in the uk it's an asbestos company. And if you didn't know what asbestos was, I hope you looked it up and found out that it's something we try not to use anymore, because it causes cancer. But they're mining asbestos in africa, and then they're selling it in the us they're not selling it directly through cave uk because they have a separate company in the us that sells asbestos into the us market, and that company employs employees that are dealing with asbestos all the time, and some of them got cancer. Actually, a lot of them about cancer. The question is, when the us court finds that the us company is liable or finds that cape is liable, can that judgment be enforced against the uk company in the uk okay. And those of you who might think a little bit about due process, and under what circumstances can you be brought into court in a foreign country?
为什么?因为同样的问题,我们不得不承担责任。在案件结束时,我们真的必须在前端处理。因为我们在英国有一家公司 Cape,它是一家石棉公司。如果您不知道石棉是什么,我希望您查阅一下,发现我们尽量不再使用石棉,因为它会导致癌症。但他们在非洲开采石棉,然后在美国销售,他们没有直接通过 Cave UK 销售,因为他们在美国有一家独立的公司,将石棉销售到美国市场,这家公司雇用的员工一直在处理石棉,其中一些人患上了癌症。实际上,其中很多都是关于癌症的。问题是,当美国法院认定美国公司有责任或认定 Cape 有责任时,该判决是否可以在英国对英国公司执行。你们中那些可能会稍微考虑一下正当程序的人,在什么情况下可以被带到国外的法庭?
Okay. For most of us, it means we have to be physically present in that place, right? Before we can be arrested or wrought in court on something, right? We have to actually set foot in that country. The question is, did cape set foot in the us because the cape UK did not have any assets in the us cape UK was not doing business in the us the only way that cape UK could be sued in the us at all is if one of these subsidiaries counts as the presence of cape in the us okay, so one of the big arguments that cape UK is making is it's not fair. It's not due process. I can't be sued here that cape UK did not even defend itself in the us proceeding. It did not show up in court because showing up in court means you might be agreeing that you're responsible in the us they didn't want to make that argument.
好。对于我们大多数人来说,这意味着我们必须亲自到那个地方,对吧?在我们被逮捕或因某事被送上法庭之前,对吧?我们必须真正踏上那个国家。问题是,cape 是否因为 cape UK 在美国没有任何资产而涉足美国 cape UK 没有在美国开展业务 cape UK 在美国被起诉的唯一方式是,如果这些子公司之一算作 cape 在美国的存在,好吧, 因此,开普英国提出的一个主要论点是它不公平。这不是正当程序。我不能在这里被起诉,因为开普敦英国甚至没有在美国的诉讼中为自己辩护。它没有出现在法庭上,因为出现在法庭上意味着你可能同意你在美国有责任,他们不想提出这样的论点。
They waited till it was try enforced in the UK meanwhile, there was a change in structure over the long period of time that this litigation is ongoing.
他们一直等到它在英国被尝试执行,与此同时,在这场诉讼进行的很长一段时间内,结构发生了变化。
And so kuk decided it was gonna try to protect itself from future litigation, and also kind of restructure its business for good business reasons.
因此,kuk 决定尝试保护自己免受未来的诉讼,并出于良好的商业原因重组其业务。
So I'm gonna put that in there, sort of keep us from just saying this is concealment, is this evasion? I don't know, but they they now at the time of the final litigation have this structure, okay? Where there's really not any direct connection between kpuk and the us operations at all and the original subsidiary in the us that was partly responsible for selling all of this is bankrupt. It's a liquidation. So you can't sue it anyway. All right. The question is, should Enterprise liability be applied? Okay? That's partly for jurisdiction purposes, like, again, is Kate present in the us so that this litigation can even be brought against it. Okay? And then secondarily, what's the liability obligation as among all these companies? Because you can imagine that the company with the greatest assets probably is the parent company in the UK because everything everywhere is ultimately under the control and ownership of the UK company, right?
所以我要把它放在那里,让我们不要只是说这是隐瞒,这是逃避吗?我不知道,但他们现在在最终诉讼时有这种结构,好吗?KPUK 和美国业务之间实际上根本没有任何直接联系,部分负责销售所有这些的美国原始子公司已经破产。这是一次清算。所以你无论如何都不能起诉它。好吧。问题是,是否应该适用企业责任?好?这部分是出于司法目的,比如,如果 Kate 在美国,那么甚至可以对它提起诉讼。好?其次,所有这些公司的责任义务是什么?因为你可以想象,拥有最大资产的公司可能是英国的母公司,因为任何地方的一切都最终都在英国公司的控制和所有权之下,对吧?
So the ultimate parent is there. So the court said in Adams versus Kate that it rejected this Enterprise view of the company, at least of a corporate
所以最终的父母就在那里。因此,法院在 Adams 诉 Kate 案中表示,它拒绝了这种企业对公司的看法,至少拒绝了对公司的看法
说话人2 01:44:59
group, it
集团、IT
说话人1 01:45:00
says our law for better or worse, recognizes that it is perfectly legal to create subsidiary companies, which, though, in one sense, are the creatures of their parent companies, will nonetheless under the general law fall to be treated as separate legal entities with all the rights and liabilities that normally attach to separate legal entities.
说,无论好坏,我们的法律都承认成立子公司是完全合法的,尽管从某种意义上说,这些子公司是其母公司的产物,但根据一般法律,它们将被视为独立的法人实体,拥有通常属于独立法人实体的所有权利和责任。
We do not accept as a matter of law that the court is entitled to lift the corporate fail in such cases, merely because the corporate structure has been used to ensure that legal liability will fall somewhere else in the corporate group.
我们不接受法院有权在这种情况下解除公司失败,仅仅因为公司结构已被用于确保法律责任将落在公司集团的其他地方。
This corporate group is created partly to take advantage of limited liability, and that's perfectly legal, whether or not this is desirable as a public policy matter. The right to use a corporate structure in this manner is inherent in our corporate law. So hamsters, cape said no Enterprise liability, too bad for the victims of the asbestos cancer. So what has happened since then?
这个企业集团的创建部分是为了利用有限责任,这是完全合法的,无论这是否作为公共政策问题可取。以这种方式使用公司结构的权利是我们公司法所固有的。所以仓鼠,海角说没有企业责任,对石棉癌的受害者来说太糟糕了。那么,从那以后发生了什么呢?
说话人2 01:46:03
We
我们
说话人1 01:46:04
have had the British courts go in an interesting direction. They've gone in the same direction that I encouraged you at the start of class, which is where we find that veil piercing is limited, where we find the common law is limited, and where we feel that find that the common law has very heavily defended these features of the corporate form, even in the context of corporate groups, what to do?
已经让英国法院朝着一个有趣的方向发展。他们朝着我在课堂开始时鼓励你的方向前进,那就是我们发现面纱穿孔是有限的,我们发现普通法是有限的,我们觉得普通法非常坚定地捍卫了公司形式的这些特征,即使在公司集团的背景下也是如此。 该怎么办?
We return to direct liability or accessory liability or other theories of liability that we already know. The creative plaintiff's lawyers have reminded the courts might apply in these cases. So let's see what happened. I've got a couple of minutes, so I'm gonna hit the first one, and we'll pick up with the next one at the start of the next hour. But just to show you this, how is this working toward? This is the case of Chandler versus cape, and I don't think I signed it to you in full, but it's discussed in your textbook. We have a subsidiary corporation that commits a tort, right? It's found to be a negligent act that results in harm to the employees. What does the court find? The court finds in this case that there was a direct duty of care owned not by not only by the subsidiary, but by the parent company itself, a direct duty of care from the parent to the third party employees such that the parent could be found guilty of negligence.
我们回到直接责任或从犯责任或我们已经知道的其他责任理论。这位富有创意的原告的律师提醒,法院可能会适用于这些案件。那么让我们看看发生了什么。我有几分钟的时间,所以我要打第一个,我们将在下一个小时开始时接下一个。但只是为了向你展示这一点,这是如何工作的?这就是钱德勒与开普的情况,我认为我没有完整地签署给你,但在你的教科书中已经讨论过了。我们有一个子公司犯下了侵权行为,对吧?发现这是一种对员工造成伤害的疏忽行为。法院会发现什么?法院在本案中认为,不仅子公司负有直接的注意义务,而且母公司本身也负有直接的注意义务,母公司对第三方雇员负有直接的注意义务,因此母公司可以被判犯有疏忽罪。
Interestingly enough, on exactly the same facts as Adam versus k because the defendant is exactly the same. It's also asbestos litigation. Plaintiff Chandler is an employee of a subsidiary. The subsidiary was dissolved. The insurance ran out, and insurance also excluded claims for asbestos cancer. But Chandler prevailed. Because the court held that the parent kplc owed a direct duty of care to the employees and that it breached that duty. I'll leave for you all to look at the rest of the slide, a kind of the analysis. And what did Chandler do? I will tell you it's kind of messy to apply. It's not the clearest result. Okay, when you think about the next case. So we'll start the sort of the next hour with the final kind of stage in the litigation of these kind of cases involving corporate groups in the UK which brings us back to shell, but we're out of time. So i'll start with that at the beginning of the next hour. And then we'll talk about agency law. If I take a look at Chandler versus Kate, look at the slides, and i'll see you next week.
有趣的是,与 Adam 与 k 的事实完全相同,因为被告完全相同。这也是石棉诉讼。原告 Chandler 是一家子公司的员工。子公司解散。保险用完了,保险也排除了石棉癌的索赔。但钱德勒占了上风。因为法院认为,母公司 kplc 对员工负有直接的注意义务,并且违反了该义务。我让大家看看幻灯片的其余部分,一种分析。钱德勒做了什么呢?我会告诉你申请有点麻烦。这不是最明显的结果。好的,当你考虑下一个案例时。因此,我们将从涉及英国企业集团的此类案件的诉讼的最后阶段开始,这让我们回到壳牌上,但我们没有时间了。所以我将在下一个小时开始时开始。然后我们来谈谈代理法。如果我看一下 Chandler 与 Kate 的对决,看看幻灯片,我们下周见。
说话人2 01:48:25
Right? I.
右?我。