C.E. Craig & Associates | Director Liability

C.E. Craig & Associates Inc.

Director Liability

Business Owner? – What Business Debts will you Owe Personally?

Personal guarantees expose owners to Director liability for the company’s debts. Additionally some Director liabilities are automatic and do not require a Director to agree. Directors of corporations are automatically personally responsible for some types of business debts. This is most often seen for federal and provincial tax laws. So, personal liability of a director can result from multiple areas including:

Fiduciary

Under federal and provincial laws directors owe a fiduciary duty of care to all parties. This duty required directors to act honestly, in good faith, and to always act in the best interest of the corporation. In small businesses, there is often blurring of the lines between what is good for a director and what is best for a company.

The directors must approach their duties as a director with a reasonable degree of care, diligence, and skill. If the company is in an insolvency situation, the directors are required to balance the interests of all stakeholders including creditors, shareholders, employees, government, and even the environment. This varied group of stakeholders often have divergent interests, making the directors duties and obligations somewhat tricky and at times, at cross purposes.

For instance, directors have an obligation to treat all creditors the same way. They cannot “favour” one creditor over another. If a director knows that the company may not be able to pay all creditors, the director may want to protect the interests of some creditors over others. This is a more significant problem is that creditor is related to the director.

A director who borrowed money from friends or family to start up a business, may want to be sure that they are paid in priority to other creditors. They may be temped to do this by granting these creditors a secured charge or lien on some or all of the company’s assets. However, it would be inappropriate to give them special status for their loans. In granting secured status to some creditors, it gives the related creditors a “leg up” over other unrelated creditors. This is seen as being unfair treatment.

If a director act in an unfair manner, they can be held responsible personally for corporate debts.

Reach out to a debt solutions manager today:

CALL TODAY

FREE CONSULTATION

Fiduciary, expanded

Beyond the efforts of some creditors to pierce the corporate veil by getting directors to sign personal guarantees, various federal and provincial statutes prescribe statutory duties that impose specific personal liabilities on directors. So, even without directors signing any agreements or guarantees, they can be automatically held personally responsible for various company debts including:

Statutory

Initially, the Trustee will meet with you to provide an assessment of your situation. This is a free consultation.We will inform you of your rights and responsibilities during bankruptcy and will also advise you on other options that may be available to you like filing a Consumer Proposal. If you decide that you need to file for bankruptcy, you will be required to provide information regarding your income and expenses, assets and liabilities.

Liabilities relating to employees of the company, for unpaid wages and vacation pay
(in British Columbia, Corporate directors and officers personally liable for up to 2 months’ wages per employee that were earned or should have been paid during their tenure. Limits: In BC Directors/officers) are Not personally liable for:

(i) Individual or group termination notice or money payable if corporation is in receivership or subject to certain bankruptcy actions;
(ii) Vacation pay that becomes payable after they leave office; or
(iii) Money left in an employee’s time bank after they leave office
(Employment Standards Act, Sec. 96)

Liabilities for improper corporate actions:

This could include preferential payments or transfer under value in insolvent or near insolvent situations. (like the situation when a director pays back family members before CRA, or sells assets to a friend for less than what they are worth. We see this from time to time, when a business owner has sold all of the assets of the company to another party (including another company owned by the director) in an attempts avoid creditors – a scheme sometime suggested by those less informed of the consequences

Personal liability for the corporation’s failure to remit or make certain tax and other payments including:

GST, Payroll Source deductions, and PST

Environmental Liability

In 1997 the British Columbia Government implemented the Waste Management Act. This Act makes corporations liable for environmental breaches and clean-up costs. It is possible that a director or officer of a corporation will be considered to be in the class of “responsible persons” who are jointly and severally liable under the Waste Management Act. This type of liability could potentially be quite large and possibly hard to quantify.

Contractual

Often, directors and officers of business are asked to sign personal guarantees for corporate debts. Agreeing to pay back business debts personally, can expose owners to significant personal risk. These requests for personal guarantees are often required for business to secure financing or asset purchases. Banks and other lenders often require personal guarantees as additional security for lending to the business. This type of guarantee means that both the business and the director/office are on the hook to pay back the liability (joint and several liability). As a director, you can ask to limit your personal exposure to a special dollar amount.

Personal guarantees may also arise under commercial leases to landlords and other creditors. This is particularly expensive when the lease lasts over many years as the guarantee may mean that a business owner must cover the rent until the lease is expired.

Insolvency Situations

In insolvency situations where a business has closed, owner-managers may also be personally insolvent. Informal negotiations with creditors is the first place to start. In these types of situations as many creditors can be very flexible and are willing to accepted a negotiated reduced payment plan. This is often not true with CRA. If an informal negotiation is not possible, business owners personally have the option to enter into a more formal debt arrangement plan. i.e. such as a personal proposal or personal bankruptcy. A consumer proposal allows the business owner to pay less than the full amount of the debt owing.

Instances where a director can be held personally liable:

A breach of the duties or responsibilities, whether statutory or fiduciary, by a director can lead to the director being held personally liable. Some of these instances are listed below:

Declaring dividends where the corporation is insolvent or within 12 months of a formal bankruptcy
Improper sale or use of company assets
Breach of directors’ and officers’ duties and responsibilities under securities, employment, tax, and environmental law
Fraud
Failure to take reasonable steps to minimize losses to creditors
Oppression remedies under corporate legislation. (Generally speaking, the oppression remedy is a remedy available under corporate statutes. So, to shareholders of a corporation in instances where the corporation or the board of directors of the corporation (owner/manager) have/had acted in a way which is oppressive, unfairly prejudicial to or which unfairly disregards the shareholder’s interests.)

Implications

Directors and officers need to understand their obligations and duties summarized above. Often a breach of duties and responsibilities by a director can lead to civil liabilities. If a company ends up filing a formal corporate bankruptcy, directors or officers behaviours are scrutinized. Directors and officers can be convicted of a bankruptcy offense if the corporation committed an offense. This is if the company breached their duties at the directors’ instruction. Bankruptcy offenses can result in either imprisonment or fines, or both.

The court can also order a director or officer to make restitution (pay money). Directors or officers may also be civilly or criminally liable under tax, employment, environmental, and securities legislation. In the most extreme cases, directors may be fined or imprisoned for specific violations.

Statutory Due Diligence Defenses

Thankfully, most statutes that impose financial liability on a director or officer of a corporation also contain due diligence defense. Where a director has exercised the degree of care, diligence they have a defense. If the director acted with the skill that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in comparable circumstances, he/she will not be held personally. As a defense in court, if a director/officer can show that they did not participate in the offense, or did not willing ignore the actions of the corporation. Then they will not be held liable for the failure to remit monies required under the statute (such as remitting GST or PST etc.)

With certain corporate transactions under the British Columbia Business Corporations Act, the ability to dissent from a resolution of the corporation creates an additional chance for the director or officer to eliminate potential liability.

“Reasonably Known” Defense

Even if a director has not dissented to an improper resolution of the board regarding certain transactions, the defense extends to actions of the company the if the director/shareholder or could not have reasonably known actions were contrary to the British Columbia Business Corporations Act. This is also true if director/officer relied and acted in good faith. And/or relied on verbal or written statements of others in a position of authority within the corporation (like reports of management or auditors).

While this due diligence defense may act to prevent liability in circumstances where the director relied on knowledge of other and acted in good faith, it does not remove director’s liability for actions that the director has been aware were taken by the board of directors but failed to dissent against.

Conclusion

In all situation, even if there is no due diligence defense under a specific statute, a wise director/shareholder should always be able to provide evidence of dissent to any contentious actions taken by board of directors. Evidence of dissent may be something considered by a Court in assessing exposure to future monetary damages.

Federal Government Licensed Programs:

The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy can help to steer you towards the professionals who can help:

https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/you-owe-money

Reach out to a debt solutions manager today:

CALL TODAY

FREE CONSULTATION

OUR TEAM

COLLEEN CRAIG

Colleen founded C.E. Craig & Associates Inc. in 2003 after 10 years in the insolvency industry. As a federally licensed Trustee in Bankruptcy she deals with the day-to-day issues that creditors and debtors encounter when they are faced with Insolvency situations. As a Chartered Accountant, Colleen brings a pragmatic approach to dealing with the complex matters and finding the right solution for all parties.

JANET WHITE

Janet has been with C.E. Craig & Associates Inc. since 2003, when the company opened. She helped build the practice from the ground up, giving her a thorough understanding of the ins and outs of insolvency legislation and procedures.

LESLEY BENTLEY

We were pleased to welcome Lesley Bentley into our firm in 2013. She has been an Estate Administrator for over 30 years offering advice to individuals struggling with personal financial issues.

BADGER

No formal insolvency training, but also non judgmental, loyal, and cute.

Reach out to a debt solutions manager today:

CALL TODAY

FREE CONSULTATION

CHECK OUT OUR BLOG

RSS image

December 12.2020

Your Big Blog Post Title Will Be Here

An excerpt of your post content will show up in this section so blog visitors can have an idea on what this post is about before they click it to see the post content. You can create your posts from your blog funnel dashboard.

0 Views

Write a Comment

RSS image

December 12.2020

Your Big Blog Post Title Will Be Here

An excerpt of your post content will show up in this section so blog visitors can have an idea on what this post is about before they click it to see the post content. You can create your posts from your blog funnel dashboard.

0 Views

Write a Comment

RSS image

December 12.2020

Your Big Blog Post Title Will Be Here

An excerpt of your post content will show up in this section so blog visitors can have an idea on what this post is about before they click it to see the post content. You can create your posts from your blog funnel dashboard.

0 Views

Write a Comment

RSS image

December 12.2020

Your Big Blog Post Title Will Be Here

An excerpt of your post content will show up in this section so blog visitors can have an idea on what this post is about before they click it to see the post content. You can create your posts from your blog funnel dashboard.

0 Views

Write a Comment

Reach out to a debt solutions manager today:

CALL TODAY

FREE CONSULTATION