本平台将致力于为您提供与您在澳洲的投资项目相关的法律信息与服务、同时也会将与中国企业及个人投资者热切关注的产业相关澳洲新闻、最新行业规定等讯息及时传递给您。
5. 董事职责
澳大利亚公司的管理属于由自然人（非其他公司）组成的董事会。相比之下, 公司的所有者，作为股东，不参与公司的管理。
在实践中，董事会将公司的大多数管理任务委托给以首席执行官或总经理为首的公司管理人员，通常只对包括与战略和政策有关的重大事项做出决策。
通常情况下，董事会将保留的权利包括任免公司首席执行官或总经理、年度预算和商务计划的审批、以及其他与政策和策略有关的决定、绩效和经营成果的管理、以及与法律合规性和管理有关的问题、与公司的股东进行沟通。
澳大利亚公司的董事还承担一系列重要的义务和责任。这些都包含在普通法（即澳大利亚的以及，在一定程度上，英格兰法院，在一段时间内决定的）以及各种法规中，最重要的是公司法。
根据公司法，对于董事所任职的公司，董事所负的基本职责包括谨慎勤勉地履行其职务、不利用其职务获利或滥用信息、避免利益冲突。这些责任也适用于该公司的高级行政人员，即通常根据澳大利亚法律所说的“官员”。
根据公司法，澳大利亚公司的董事和官员的最重要的义务是：
（a）谨慎勤勉地履行职责的责任;
（b）行使其权利和职责时履行诚信的义务;
（c）不利用其职务为其本人或他人获取个人利益、或为公司带来损害的义务; 和
（d）不利用因其职务所拥有的信息为其本人或他人获利的义务。
5.1 谨慎和勤勉的责任
谨慎勤勉的义务要求董事及官员按照有理智的人作为公司的董事、并拥有该董事或官员所拥有的职务、且在公司中具有与该董事或官员相同的责任时，在公司当时的情况下行事的谨慎和勤勉程度行使其权利并履行其职责。
根据公司法，如果公司的一名董事或官员做出的判断是处于善意地为了一个正当目标，在该判断有关的事物中不存在实质性的个人利益，在合理的适当范围内自行了解判断的标的物，并相信该判断代表了公司的最佳利益，那么其所做出经营判断即视为合理地谨慎和勤勉地行使其权利。
5.2 利益冲突
公司的董事和官员必须确保他们对利益冲突保持警惕，并在法律范围内进行处理。这往往是简单地将该冲突披露给该公司的其他董事并避免参与关于存在问题的事项的决策的制定。
5.3 诚信责任
根据公司法，公司的董事和官员的最重要的义务之一是以公司的最佳利益为前提行事的责任。
5.4 防止破产交易的责任
董事还有避免其担任董事的公司在无力偿债时招致债务的重要责任。破产的判断通常是指该公司在债务到期时是否能够偿还。这是一个特别重要的责任，因为，在某些情况下，招致随后无力偿还的债务的董事可能需要对该债务承担个人责任，并被该公司未来的清盘人起诉。
5.5 其他义务
除了上述职责，根据行业的具体立法或健康和安全规定，董事可能还须履行其他义务。
6. 市场敏感资料的保护
与其他许多国家相同，澳大利亚拥有健全的法律体制，目的是为了确保其证券市场是消息灵通的，并确保拥有通常无法获取的市场敏感信息的人不能使用该信息为其本人或其他任何人获利。这些禁令通常被称为防止内幕交易，但在现实中，其作用远远不止如此。
当一个人掌握了通常无法获知的重要信息时（或如果其可以广泛获知，有理性的人会预期其对证券产品的价格或价值产生重大影响），切该人士知道或理应知道该信息通常无法获知，且如果可以广泛获知，有理性的人将预期其对证券产品的价格或价值产生重大影响时，内幕交易禁令将适用。这里使用的术语“证券”，不仅指代股票，还泛指各类的金融产品。
如果禁令适用，掌握该信息的人将被禁止从事相关金融产品的买卖以及与可能利用该信息从事该金融产品买卖的人沟通该信息。
该禁令可以有效地防止澳大利亚上市公司与分析师沟通该不应被更广泛的市场获知且对价格非常敏感的信息。选择性地向分析师披露是不当行为，因为这将导致该分析师比其他分析师拥有更大的优势，进而导致市场的不公平和信息闭塞。
违反内幕交易禁令的人将被处以严厉的民事和刑事处罚，且澳大利亚的相关监管机构ASIC具有广泛的权利，包括向法院提出申请以禁止涉嫌内幕交易的人离开澳大利亚的权力。
作者：豪力合伙人伊恩•罗伯逊（Ian Robertson）
_________________________
【专业干货——助您成功投资澳洲业务】
欲查阅之前我们发布的如下【在澳经商基本法律法规】主题系列以及与您生意相关的其他资讯，请进入订阅号点击右上角按钮，选择“查看历史消息”：
· 在澳大利亚成立公司须知
· 澳大利亚相关背景，例如包括澳大利亚政府制度、法律制度、企业结构
· 其他常见领域法律与规定，例如技术与知识产权保护、反垄断和消费者保护法、合同法、公开接管、电子商务、商业移民和雇主担保签证、房地产、环境法等
· 专业信息与见解，如对外商投资的监管要求等
（原创文章，欢迎转发，谢谢关注！未经授权，严禁转载！）
Doing Business in Australia – Government, Business Structures, Directors Duties and Insider Trading [Part 3]
5. Directors duties
The management of an Australian company is vested in the board of directors which must consist of natural persons (rather than other companies). By way of contrast, the owners of the company, being the shareholders, are not involved in the management of the company.
In practice, the board of directors delegates most of the management tasks of the company to the company’s management, headed by the Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director, and usually only makes important decisions including those related to strategy and policy.
Usually the board will reserve to itself the appointment and remuneration of the company’s Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director, the approval of annual budgets and business plans as well as other decisions concerning policy and strategy, the management of performance and business results, and issues relating to legal compliance and governance and communication with the company’s shareholders.
There are a number of important obligations and responsibilities placed upon Australian company directors. These are contained in the common law (being the law decided over a period of time by the courts of Australia and, to an extent, England), and a variety of statutes, most importantly the Corporations Act.
Under the Corporations Act, directors have basic duties to the company of which they are a director to carry out their position with care and diligence, to not profit from their position or misuse information, and to avoid conflicts of interest. These duties also apply to the company’s senior executives which under Australian law are usually referred to as “officers”.
The most important obligations of directors and officers of an Australian company under the Corporations Act are:
(a) the duty of care and diligence;
(b) the obligation to exercise good faith in the discharge of their powers and duties;
(c) the obligation not to use their position to gain a personal advantage for themselves, or someone else or to cause detriment to the company; and
(d) the obligation not to use information they hold because of their office to gain an advantage for themselves or someone else.
5.1 Duty to exercise care and diligence
The duty of care and diligence requires directors and officers to exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person would exercise if they were a director of the corporation in the corporation’s circumstances, and occupying the office held by the director or officer, and had the same responsibility within the corporation as the director or officer.
Under the Corporations Act, a director or officer of a company who makes a business judgment is taken to have exercised their powers with reasonable care and diligence if they make the judgment in good faith for a proper purpose, do not have a material personal interest in the subject matter of the judgment, inform themselves about the subject matter of the judgment to the extent reasonably appropriate, and believe that the judgment is in the best interest of the company.
5.2 Conflicts of interest
Directors and officers of companies must ensure that they are alert to conflicts of interest and deal with them within the law. This is often as simple as disclosing the conflict to the other directors of the company and absenting themselves from being involved in the making of decisions in respect of the issue in question.
5.3 Duty of good faith
One of the most important obligations of company directors and officers under the Corporations Act is the duty to act in good faith in the best interests of the company.
5.4 Duty to prevent insolvent trading
Directors also have an important duty to prevent a company of which they are a director incurring a debt while the company is insolvent. The test of insolvency is usually referred to as whether the company can pay its debts as and when they fall due. This is a particularly important obligation because, in certain circumstances, a director of a company which incurs debts which it is subsequently unable to pay may be personally liable for those debts and be sued by a future liquidator of the company.
5.5 Other obligations
In addition to the duties above, directors may be subject to additional obligations under industry specific legislation or health and safety regulations.
6. Protection of market sensitive information
Australia, in common with many other counties, has a strong legal regime which seeks to ensure that its security markets are well informed and that persons with market-sensitive information which is not generally available cannot make use of that information for the benefit of themselves or anyone else. These prohibitions are generally referred to as preventing insider trading, but in reality they go much further.
The insider trading prohibition applies where a person possesses information that is not generally available and which is material (or a reasonable person would expect it to have a material effect on the price or value of securities if it were generally available), and the person knows, or ought reasonably to know, that the information is not generally available and if it were generally available a reasonable person would expect it to have a material effect on the price or value of the relevant securities. The term “securities” when used here refers to not only shares but to a wide range of financial products.
If the prohibition applies, the person in possession of the information is prohibited from dealing in the relevant financial products and from communicating the information to any other person who might make use of it to deal in the financial products.
The prohibition has the practical effect of preventing a listed Australian company from communicating to analysts information that is not generally available to the wider market and is materially price sensitive. Selective disclosure to analysts is considered objectionable because it results in the analyst in the possession of the relevant information to have an advantage over others which leads to market unfairness and an ill-informed market.
Significant civil and criminal penalties apply to those who breach the prohibition on insider trading and the relevant Australian regulator, ASIC has a wide range of powers including the ability to apply to a court to restrain those suspected of insider trading from leaving Australia.
Author: Ian Robertson - Partner at Holding Redlich
_________________________
【We provide excellent expert advice to businesses wishing to invest in Australia.】
To view our previous news releases for Chinese investors and the following articles of the topic ‘Basic legal knowledge on doing business in Australia’, please click the upper-right button on our WeChat platform, andclick ‘view previous information’:
· Business set up in Australia, business structures, company administration, etc.
· Background information of Australia, including Australian government, legal system, and business structures, etc.
· Laws and regulations in various common areas, including protection of technology and intellectual property, anti-trust and consumer law, contract law, business migration, realproperty, public takeovers, and electronic commerce etc.
· Professional industrial updates and insights, such as regulation on foreign investment
