GAZETTE
APRIL 1981
is in breach of his duty to the company and is himself
liable to the company in damages. A member has a
further right of action against the majority of share
holders, who in a General Meeting used their vote for
their own benefit or for the benefit of a third party, to the
company's detriment or to the detriment of the other
shareholders. These actions may, to an extent, be
compared with the action under Section 205 of the
Companies Act, 1963.
With regard to minority shareholders, a minority,
(holding 10% of the capital of the company or 2m. DM in
shares), may request that the conduct of an individual
member of the Board of Supervisors or Management be
voted on separately, as opposed to the Boards being
approved of as a body. A similar minority representation
may request a vote on the appointment of a new auditor.
The same minority may request the Board of Manage-
ment to call a General Meeting. These last two are similar
to Irish minority rights.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for large
concerns in Germany, there is no corresponding provi
sion in German company law to Section 204 of the
Companies Act, 1963. Under this Section a company
which owns 80% of the shares of another company can
force the minority shareholders out of the company, by
offering them a reasonable economic value for their
shares. This power is also known and extensively used in
the U.K. There is no such provision in German law; such
a provision would, undoubtedly, be welcomed by large
German concerns who control companies, but who would
like to be able to remove troublesome minority share-
holders.
COPIES WILLS AND
GRANTS
OR HOW TWO SIMPLE ' PHONE
CALLS CAN STRETCH YOUR CAPITAL
With just two phone calls, your
money can be earning interest in a Hill
Samuel deposit account - overnight, or
for as long as you wish.
The Hill Samuel Dial-Deposit
Service allows you to transfer your
inactive funds daily to a Hill Samuel
deposit account, by making two phone
calls before 2 p.m. One to Hill Samuel
and one to your own bank
The minimum amount per
transaction is £25,000.00 Although
market interest rates vary from day to
day, Hill Samuel will endeavour to
minimise fluctuations.
All it takes to transfer the money
back to the original account is a simple
phone call to Hill Samuel before 1 p.m.
It could be one of the most
interesting phone calls you've ever
made.
Contact our Deposit Department
It is, perhaps, not sufficiently widely known that copies of
Wills and Grants can be bespoken from the Probate
Office at the same time as papers are lodged for the
relevant Grant. If copies are bespoken in this way, they
will be available very shortly after the issue of the grant
itself, thus enabling the practitioner to proceed at once
with the rapid circulation of copies of the Grant for
noting, or with an application for a Grant in another
country.
It must be noted, however, that this facility is only
available if the copies are bespoken when lodging the
papers; if the requisition is not lodged with the papers, it
will not be processed until after the Grant has issued.
It should, perhaps, also be noted that the charge for an
official copy of a Grant, if bespoken at the time of the
application for the Grant, is only 15 pence and that such
a copy is, under Section 43(2) of the Succession Act
1965, sufficient evidence of the Grant for any transaction
in Ireland.
The charge for an official copy of the Grant, if bespoken
at any other time, is 25 pence. The charge for an official
copy of a Will, whenever bespoken, is 25 pence.
3 HILL
1 SAMUEL
Merchant Bankers, Hill Samuel House,
Adelaide Rd„ Dublin 2.
Telephone: (01) 764396/8. 686566.
Telex: 25378.
NATIONWIDE
INVESTIGATIONS
LIMITED
Working in closest co-operation with the
Legal Profession
1 26 Broadford Rise, Ballinteer, Dublin 6
Tel. 01 989964
62




