Police and Security, Vol. 20 No. 4, 2011.
Professional paper
Criminal Offense of Violation of Duty by a Member of the Board of Directors or Executive Director in Case of Insolvency or Company's loss
Zorislav Kaleb
; Općinski sud u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Members of a company's Board of Directors, their deputies and executive directors of a joint stock company, can be held liable for committing the criminal offense of "Violation of duty in cases of loss, over-indebtedness or insolvency (Article 626 of the Croatian Companies Act)", and in some cases also liquidators of a company being liquidated, who, in most cases, are the former members of the Board of Directors. Analyzing the recent court practice, especially of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia and the County Court in Zagreb, one comes to the conclusion that members of the Board of Directors of a limited liability company could not be held liable for not initiating insolvency proceedings in case of insolvency which occurred in the period from January 01, 2004 till May 01, 2010 when the new amendments to the Companies Act of 2009 entered into force. In that period they can only be held responsible for not convening the Assembly. As of May 01, 2010, members of the Board of Directors of a limited liability company can again be held criminally liable for not reporting bankruptcy in cases of loss, over-indebtedness or insolvency; this institute is restored at the time of recession, and at the time when many companies have stopped fulfilling their due payments to each other. Croatian Bankruptcy Act provides that a debtor shall be deemed insolvent if he has not fulfilled his obligations to any legal person performing payment transactions for the debtor for a period exceeding 60 days, and which payments should have been made on the basis of a valid payment ground by withdrawing money from any of the debtor's accounts without his further consent.
Keywords
violation; duty; loss; insolvency; payment; member of a Board of Directors; bankruptcy proceedings
Hrčak ID:
79688
URI
Publication date:
15.3.2012.
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