ABSTRACT

This article advances a new approach to questions of knowledge attribution concerning determination of legal liability. It does so within the setting of a corporate group, specifically where a director, manager or secretary of a parent company is appointed to a subsidiary's board and acquires pertinent knowledge in the latter capacity. Under the common law of England and Wales, that knowledge cannot be attributed to the parent unless an exception exists. These are narrow and difficult to establish. However, common officers are often deployed to facilitate information flow between two companies. This creates a troubling paradox which has not previously been identified in the literature. Whilst the parent may benefit from useful intelligence gathered by these individuals, it is largely immune from legal liability if information relating to malfeasance or neglect in the subsidiary is discovered. The proposed approach redresses this imbalance, enabling information concerning the parent's ‘affairs’ to be attributed to it.

摘要

本文提出了一种有关确定法律责任的知识归因问题的新方法。这样做是在公司集团的背景下进行的，特别是在母公司的董事，经理或秘书被任命为子公司董事会并获得子公司董事会相关知识的情况下。根据英格兰和威尔士的普通法，除非存在例外，否则该知识不能归于父母。这些范围狭窄且难以建立。但是，通常会部署普通官员来促进两家公司之间的信息交流。这就产生了一个令人困扰的悖论，这在文献中没有被发现。尽管父母可以从这些人收集的有用情报中受益，如果发现与子公司的渎职或疏忽有关的信息，则很大程度上免于法律责任。拟议的方法纠正了这种不平衡，使有关父母“事务”的信息可以归因于它。