Useful new book on Company Law to debut next week

Saturday, 29 November 2014 00:06 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The corporate world and the legal fraternity are soon to be treated to a new treatise on the law relating to companies in Sri Lanka. Authored by K. Kanag-Isvaran, President’s Counsel, Chairman of the Advisory Commission on Company Law, which drafted the Act of 2007, and Dilshani Wijayawardana, holder of a Masters Degree in Commercial Law from the University of Cambridge and an Attorney-at-Law, the book titled ‘Company Law’ will be launched on 4 December.

Running to over 1,000 pages and constituting 80 chapters, it treats the members of the higher echelons of the corporate world to chapters on ‘Directors,’ dealing with their rights, duties, obligations, exposure to personal liabilities and penalties. ‘Shareholders’ are informed of what the authors call their fundamental rights, their rights in the face of oppression, mismanagement, minority buy-out rights, derivative action and other legawl remedies available to safeguard their investments. Two chapters which stand out as ‘firsts’ in Sri Lankan jurisprudence are of particular interest to legal practitioners as well as liquidators. The first, the chapter on ‘Winding up,’ running to over 100 pages, explains the intricacies of the subject and the nuances attendant thereto, in terms of the substantive law and its sui generis procedure. An Addendum relating to the subject completes the picture. The second is a chapter on procedure and practice (cursus curiae) relating to company litigation in Sri Lanka, encompassing a historical background to procedures adopted from time to time, its progression from lessons learnt to keep the streams of justice moving smoothly, up to the procedures adopted in the Act, which has introduced some novel features as well, in the interests of justice and the expeditious treatment of commercial litigation. As the Act of 2007 has made a paradigm shift from the principal features of the institution of a company under the Anglophone company law, references have been made in foot notes, for the legal enthusiast, to relevant jurisprudence to understand the true significance of certain provisions in the Act.