Company Director Duties and Liabilities

This short article is on what a Company Director Duties and Liabilities are and how a company director could even be prosecuted for environmental offences with extremely serious consequences.

Company Director Duties and Liabilities, Bristol Aeroplane Company fire brigade at the Filt…—brizzle born and bred (Flickr.com)

Take Note of Company Director Duties and Liabilities

If you are a company director you should most certainly take note of your company director duties and liabilities. Company directors should also note that environmental law breaches are now regarded as very serious. These offences also carry very serious and wide ranging potential sanctions. These sanctions will inevitably have an enormous impact on a person’s ability to continue as a director based on a ruling in a recent case. So is it important to take a note of company director duties and liabilities? absolutely!

Company Director Duties and Liabilities – Director Fined and Jailed

An example of failing to know company director duties and liabilities can leave a person having to pay a fine and even in prison. For example, take the case of Arcwood Recycling Ltd and a director of the company ended up pleading guilty to charges concerning the pollution of the Ereswash Canal in October 2012. The company was ordered to pay a fine of £8,000 and ordered to pay costs of £7,500. What makes the matter worse for the company is that the director was given a ten-month jail sentence and disqualified from being a director of any company for eight years. These are some of the reasons as to why these sanctions will inevitably have an enormous impact on a person’s ability to continue as a director. This is all the more reason as why it is extremely important that you should be aware of company director duties and liabilities.

Where there are one or two company directors, each person should know what are their individual and collective company director duties and liabilities. There  may even be circumstances where one director can be made liable for the acts and even omissions of the other company director. These are some of the reasons as to why these sanctions will inevitably have an enormous impact on a company’s ability to continue to trade. Not that I mean to sound like a broken record but these are again some of the reasons why a person acting as a director needs to be aware of company director duties and liabilities. 

Company Director Duties and Liabilities – Financial and Environmental Costs

In this particular case in September 2012 a fire at the site lasted a mind boggling nine days. In addition to the environmental impact of and thousands of fish being killed the financial cost of dealing with the catastrophe was around £200,000 according to the Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency in these circumstances will usually require information concerning the site. It is more than likely that there would be the need to interview the director and of course company concerned too.

Company Director Duties and Liabilities – Where to go for Advice

Under the Companies Act 2006 there are all sorts of powers given to a company director, including company director duties and liabilities. If you are a company director as part of your role you potentially have personal liabilities and of course responsibilities to respond in a timely manner to any environmental concerns raised by outside agencies and relevant authorities. If you are looking for advice on powers of a company director, or even Company Director Duties and Liabilities the why not contact Tahir Ashraf?