International Law

Senator Nick Sherry, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law, has announced that the Commonwealth will conduct an audit of its laws that impact on the issue of company director liability and will do so against the principles developed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

The COAG principles state:

• where companies contravene statutory requirements, liability should be imposed in the first instance on the company itself;
• personal criminal liability of a corporate officer for the misconduct of the corporation should generally be limited to situations where the officer encourages or assists the commission of the offence (accessorial liability); and
• in exceptional circumstances, where there is a public policy need to go beyond the ordinary principles of accessorial liability, a form of deemed liability could be imposed on a corporate officer only using a 'designated officer' approach (for minor offences) or a 'modified accessorial' approach (for more serious offences).

The Commonwealth aims to conduct the audit in the second half of 2009.