Экзамен зачет учебный год 2023 / Class_12

Свободная трибуна

Хотя дедлоки обычно ассоциируются с небольшим составом участников, что по определению противоречит модели ПАО, спецификой многих отечественных ПАО является наличие высокой доли одного или нескольких акционеров, а потому корпоративные конфликты в ОАО, акции которых обращались на бирже, в том числе дедлоки на уровне акционеров и советов директоров, — это реальные жизненные примеры из совсем недавнего российского прошлого. Вовсе не предлагая здесь каких-либо готовых решений, все же следует заметить, что отдельные средства разрешения дедлоков (назначение (арбитражного) управляющего для дедлоков на уровне коллегиальных органов, принудительная реорганизации

иликвидация, взыскание убытков) могли бы также в перспективе применяться

ив отношении ПАО.

В завершение следует сказать, что всякое усложнение правового материала решает одни проблемы, но при этом порождает новые. То, что российское корпоративное право получило глоток договорной свободы, — это огромное достижение, от которого не нужно отказываться лишь потому, что оно порождает проблемы дедлоков. Исторически бесперспективно ограничивать свободу договора в корпоративном праве, лучше подумать о том, как уравновесить ее механизмами ответственности, в том числе средствами разрешения дедлоков, хотя бы и проистекающих во многом именно из такой свободы.

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Information about the author

Stepanov Dmitry — Partner at Egorov, Puginskiy, Afanasiev and Partners, PhD in Law (119017 Russia, Moscow, Bol. Ordynka St., 40/5; e-mail: dmitry_stepanov@epam.ru).

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and mature publicly held corporations post leveraged buyouts. More generally, close corporations are important because of their number and because even the largest publicly held corporations often start out as closely held corporations. As such, close corporations are incubators for tomorrow's publicly held corporations.

Two sets of problems have arisen repeatedly in closely held corporations, but only rarely in publicly held firms. The first, now resolved, revolved around the enforceability of attempts by participants to tailor the terms set by the general corporation law. Because states historically have provided one corporation law for all corporations, participants in closely held corporations have often tried to modify the statutory structure by contract to serve their needs. These variations have raised the question of the extent to which parties can contract out of the rules provided by the statute. The evolution toward greater flexibility was long, and at times, hard fought, but it no longer is a central issue. Today, participants in the close corporation can largely tailor its terms to their purposes.

The second set of problems, and the focus of this Article, fails under the caption of "protection of minority shareholders." To what extent should the law provide protection to minority shareholders from "oppression" by majority shareholders, beyond what the parties have contracted for? This set of questions, unlike the first set, remains alive and controversial. It has been the subject of an enormous amount of judicial and legislative effort, much of which has been devoted to expanding the rights of minority shareholders. The questions raised go to the very core of what corporations are about.

There are several repeated scenarios that raise the issue of "minority oppression." Consider the following:

Case A: There is a falling out between the majority shareholder, Major, and the minority shareholder, Minor, both of whom work in the business. Major fires Minor, who then can either hold on to his shares, which pay no dividends (all distributions are through excessive salaries), or sell them back to the firm for whatever the majority shareholder is willing to offer. A variant arises when there are three equal shareholders, A, B, and C. After a falling-out, A and B gang up on C and fire him, at which point he is left with shares that pay no dividends and which only the firm is willing to buy.2

Case B: The majority shareholder or group of shareholders enter into a transaction with the finn, in which, for example, the firm buys back a portion of the majority shareholders' shares without making the opportunity available to the minority shareholders.3 Easier variants of this scenario include the full range of transactions of controlling shareholders with the firm, including compensation, selling and buying property, and diversion of corporate opportunities.4 More difficult variants include the situation in which the majority shareholder takes advantage of opportunities which are not clearly corporate opportunities, such as developing a more liquid market for shares in

2.See, e.g., Wilkes v. Springside Nursing Home, Inc., 353 N.E.2d 657 (Mass. 1976); In re Topper, 433 N.Y.S.2d 359 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1980).

3.Classic examples are Donahue v. Rodd Electrotype Co., 328 N.E.2d 505 (Mass. 1975) and Nixon v.

Blackwell, 626 A.2d 1366 (Del. 1993).

4. See, e.g., Crosby v. Beam, 548 N.E.2d 217 (Ohio 1989); Alaska Plastics, Inc. v. Coppock, 621 P.2d 270 (Alaska 1980).

which the minority shareholders would like to participate, but are not offered the opportunity.5

Case C: The majority shareholder sells its majority (controlling) stake to a third party without giving the minority shareholder an opportunity to participate.

This Article addresses the question of what, if anything, the courts should do for the minority shareholders in cases where the parties have not provided for the problem by contract.6 Our basic answer is that courts should not do anything except enforce the participants' contracts and vigorously prevent non pro rata distributions to shareholders. This second principle provides a guide to the expansion of minority shareholder protection against "oppression."7

We proceed as follows. First, we make a fundamental break with the traditional legal treatment of the problem of "minority oppression" by rejecting the analogy between close corporations and partnerships, and the intuitions and implications that flow from it. We also show that the alternative argument, which emphasizes the low agency costs of close corporations, needs to be expanded upon to explain the Silicon Valley type of start­ up close corporation. Second, we illustrate that the close corporation form is best suited to companies that require extensive investments in match assets. In such cases, the close corporation acts as an incubator and the lock-in is a benefit, not a cost. Low agency costs are more likely a result of the choice of forms and not the reason the form is adopted in the first instance. Third, we argue that the problem of minority oppression combines two fundamentally separate problems: in the employment context, the issue raised by the "employment at will" doctrine; and the quite separate problem of controlling shareholder attempts to make non pro rata distributions of firm assets. Building on an earlier analysis of employment at will, we then show that the same rule of judicial non-intervention that governs the employment relationship solves closely similar problems in the close corporation context. This rule, combined with vigorous judicial enforcement of the rule of no non pro rata distributions, including ancillary enforcement of minority shareholder informational rights, and limitations on the ability of control shareholders to sell shares to the firm, allows the close corporation to maximize the value of its match assets. We conclude by drawing the implications of the analysis for a larger theory of close corporations.

5.See Jones v. Ahmanson & Co., 460 P.2d 464 (Cal. 1969).

6.For a very interesting and important game theoretic analysis that arrives at many of-the same points as we do but from a different direction, see Jason Johnston, Opting In and Opting Out: Bargainingfor Fiduciary Duties in Cooperative Ventures, 70 WASH. U. L.Q. 291 (1992). Other important treatments that overlap with

ours are FRANK H. EASTERBROOK & DANIEL R. FISCHEL, THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF CORPORATE LAW

228-52 (1991), and Charles R. O'Kelley, Filling the Gaps in the Close Corporation Contract: A Transaction Cost Analysis, 87 Nw. U. L. REV. 216 (1992).

7. There is a third problem which is not normally thought of as a "close corporation problem" but which is, namely, "piercing the corporate veil." This is the issue of when a creditor can "pierce the corporate veil" of limited liability in order to reach the assets of the shareholders. Although formally a question that arises in both publicly held and close corporations, the issue arises only in close corporations-in the United States, at least. This issue is, however, beyond the scope ofthe article.