Oury Clark Insolvency

Are you a company director?

Oury Clark Insolvency Blog - March 17th, 2010 by Elliot Green
  • Elliot Green

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It is a widespread belief, that if you are not listed and registered as a Director at Companies House, that you are not a Director of a UK company.

This is simply wrong. In UK law there are essentially three types of director:

1. Registered Director

2. Shadow Director

3. De facto Director

In the Companies Acts “shadow director”, in relation to a company, means a person in accordance with whose directions or instructions the directors of the company are accustomed to act.

A de facto director is someone who holds themselves out as a director without being registered and who undertakes duties that should be undertaken by a person who is a director.

With any type of director, the question often is about whether or not you have a degree of control over a company’s affairs.

The relevance this has is that if a director (registered or not) causes a company to suffer loss, he or she could be liable for the losses suffered. It will be by no means a defence to a claim, that simply because they were not registered as a director they cannot be liable for actions causing loss to a company.

If in any doubt it is best to take advice to enable the position be clarified so that any surprises later on, are rather more welcome than unwelcome!

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