As a corporate officer of a company in Las Vegas, you naturally want your business to succeed. It may be that not everyone involved in your corporation is as committed as you are. According to the American Bar Association, if your partners, directors and controlling shareholders do not fulfill their fiduciary duties, you may be able to take them to court to hold them liable. However, proving that there has been a breach of fiduciary duty is not always cut and dried.
Acting with care is one of the duties that an officer owes to the corporation. So, acting prudently and in good faith may be enough to sidestep a breach, even if a person makes a bad decision that costs your company and the shareholders a significant amount of money.
A breach of loyalty, on the other hand, can be boiled down primarily to whether the individual has an interest in a transaction. Examples of this include taking part in insider trading, using company information for personal gain and awarding undue compensation. This is not the only thing you have to consider, though. An officer must be able to show that he or she undertook the decision or action in question with independent judgment that was not influenced by factors outside the best interests of the company.
Although this information may help you understand breach of fiduciary duty, judges may inconsistently apply state and federal laws due to the unique nature of every claim. Therefore, it should not be interpreted as legal advice.
