An accountant is frequently the first person the owner of a company turns to when he or she is considering are financing or a reorganisation of a company. The accountant is often tasked with imputing his or her accounting and tax skill set to the proposal to ensure that it makes commercial sense but does not create accounting or taxation problems either immediately or in the future. However, what can and cannot be done from a legal perspective is constrained by various provisions of the Companies Act 2014. Directors are in a unique position in relation to their company and the possibility of the abuse of directors’ duties can particularly arise where the directors and shareholders are the same persons as so often happens in the case of private companies. In such a situation the usual policing control exercised by the shareholders is absent. Chapter 4 of Part 5 of the Companies Act 2014 sets out a series of provisions dealing with frequently encountered situations where a director of a company may be tempted to or may inadvertently put his personal interests before those of the company.
Similarly, an accountant in preparing an audit of a company may become aware of transactions between the company and the directors and connected persons entered into during the year which may be caught by the above provisions and it may be necessary to identify if correct procedures were adhered to and, if not, what steps if any can be taken to rectify the position.
In this course Sean Nolan covers the following topics;
Sean Nolan
