Commercial Law Workshop – Directors’ Duties: Managing Risk and Responsibility

Whether you are a business owner or company director, the responsibility you carry for how your company is run is significant.

Directors are expected to oversee strategy, financial performance, compliance and risk, while also balancing obligations to shareholders, employees and other stakeholders. At the same time, regulatory expectations continue to evolve, and enforcement action against directors is becoming more common.

Directors are frequently exposed not through deliberate misconduct, but through uncertainty around the scope of their duties and how those duties operate in practice, often in circumstances where personal liability can arise.

This half-day Directors’ Duties Workshop has been refreshed and expanded to reflect the issues currently facing boards and directors. It brings together commercial, litigation, employment and tax perspectives to provide a clear and grounded overview of directors’ obligations, liabilities and governance responsibilities.

Topics covered include:

• An introduction to directorship and the role of the board
• Directors’ duties, including the duty of fidelity
• Obligations to shareholders, employees and other stakeholders
• Legal obligations and liabilities of directors under common law and the Corporations Act
• Due diligence for companies and directors
• What effective boards look like and how board performance can be assessed
• Directors’ obligations under specific legislation, including:
  • Australian Competition Law
  • Fair Work Act
  • Work Health & Safety laws
• Tax issues relevant to directors
• Managing directors’ liability when companies experience financial difficulty, including safe harbour considerations

Presenters

The workshop will be presented by senior lawyers from Coleman Greig Lawyers with extensive experience advising directors and boards:

• Malcolm Campbell, Principal/Director, Team Leader – Commercial Services
• Caroline Hutchinson, Principal/Director, Team Leader – Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Employment Law
• Stephen Lau, Principal Lawyer, Team Leader – Tax & Superannuation

Who should attend?

This workshop is designed for business owners, company directors and senior executives, including COOs and CFOs, as well as professional advisers who work closely with directors, such as accountants and financial planners, who want a clearer understanding of directors’ obligations, the risks they face, and how those risks can be managed. Places are limited.