News & Events

Corporate Governance and Administration Conference 2009

The annual Corporate Governance and Administration Conference 2009 convened by leading legal publishers Jordans, was held on 5 March in Clontarf Castle Hotel, Dublin. Mason Hayes & Curran’s Corporate partner Paul Egan chaired the conference and Declan Black, partner and head of litigation, was a speaker.

This conference, now in its seventh year, is attended by company directors, company secretaries, senior executives, compliance managers and their legal advisors.

The current economic climate, coupled with the Irish Government's increasing vigilance over business compliance, makes for testing conditions for companies and their directors. This newly developed programme was designed to keep attendees abreast of all the latest developments in company law and also consider practical matters such as how to safeguard company funds and assess Irish, EU and other bank guarantee schemes.

The Conference provided insight on the following areas:

• Director's duties in a post-credit crunch environment - including possible insolvency
• Company and director duties under data protection law
•  The ODCE's compliance and enforcement work
• Developments in Companies Registration Office - including electronic filing
• Bank guarantee schemes
• Corporate governance from a media perspective

Declan Black spoke on directors' duties against the financial backdrop, including when a company approaches insolvency. Also Speaking were Billy Hawkes, Data Protection Commissioner, considering company and director duties, Paul Appleby who discussed the current focus of the Office of Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE)  compliance work, Paul Farrell who provided an update on the developments in the Companies Registration Office and John McMannus, Business Editor of the Financial Times, who discussed corporate governance from a media perspective.

Paul Egan, in his concluding remarks to the conference noted that good corporate governance is quite a simple proposition.  And a straightforward way to ensure good corporate governance is to have a company secretary. Not a company secretary who is also the Chief Financial Officer, or the holder of another senior executive office, or indeed a junior clerk; the company secretary should be appropriately qualified and trained to do the key roles of a company secretary. Paul reminded delegates that the key duties of a secretary are to “keep the statutory records up to date - minutes, registers, copies of documents, and to make those documents available to those who are entitled to them or who should have them.  Vigilance in the carrying out of these fundamental duties is the best disincentive to spontaneous misfeasance by directors."

Pictured above from left to right are: Paul Egan, partner and Chairman of the corporate department, Mason Hayes & Curran.