重省董事自我交易法制－再訪最高法院一百年度第三次民事庭會議決議及相關判決

Reassessing the Director Self-Dealing Rule: Reexamining the Resolution of 3rd Civil Court Session of the Supreme Court in 2011 and Related Cases

10.53106/207873752024010028001

賴彥誠(LAI Yan-Cheng)；邵慶平(SHAO Ching-Ping)

董事自我交易 ； 董事會決議 ； 監察人代表權 ； 一致同意原則 ； Director's Self-dealing ； Resolutions of the Board of Directors ； Right of Representation of Supervisor ； Doctrine of Unanimous Consent

中正財經法學

28期（2024 / 01 / 01）

1 - 51

繁體中文;英文

依公司法第208條第3項規定，董事長為公司之代表人。但依公司法第223條規定，董事為自己或他人與公司為買賣、借貸或其他法律行為時，由監察人為公司之代表。本條從我國公司法在20世紀初立法時即已存在，向來被認為具有管控董事自我交易之重要意義。關於董事自我交易制度之運作，近年才出現的一個議題是此類交易須否經董事會決議。最高法院100年度第3次民事庭會議決議對此採否定說。惟此一決議備受批判、甚少獲得支持。此一決議做成之原因及論理為何，值得深究。不同於過去研究著眼於決議有限之內容，本文考察與此一決議密切相關的法院判決。本文推測，此一決議之作成可能係受到過去學說之影響，然而，在不盡相同之論述架構下，有可能因而產生張冠李戴之誤。而此一決議適用範圍之限制－限於非公開發行公司，也限於非專屬決議事項－亦顯現出其論理之缺陷。從相關判決出發，本文亦討論進一步兩個相關的議題。其一是，假若公司法第223條之交易須經董事會決議，則決議之不存在是否影響交易之效力。從此一議題之考察，對於我國學界常討論之「內部決議與外部交易效力關聯」之議題，本文提供了一些觀點及論述。其二是關於董事會決議之形式。相對於既有司法實務見解，本文認為應該更注重實質，少偏重形式。就此，英國法上的一致同意原則，以及我國公司法於107年的修法，都可以作為佐證。

According to Section 3, Article 208 of the Company Law, the chairman of the board is the representative of a company. However, Article 223 of the Company Law requires that, in case a director of a company transacts a sale with, or borrows money from or conducts any legal act with the company on his own account or for any other person, the supervisor shall act as the representative of the company. Having been in place since the Company Law was created in the early twentieth century, this Article empowering the supervisor to check on director's self-dealing is highly recognized. Regarding the operation of the director's self-dealing regime, one major issue which only surfaced in recent years is whether the approval from the board is needed. As the text of the Article 223 suggests, the director's self-dealing cannot be done without the approval of the supervisor. The role of the board is not mentioned in this Article. In 2011, the 3rd Civil Court Session of the Supreme Court was convened to solve this issue. The resolution passed therein is that a director's self-dealing can proceed without a board action. The resolution draws much criticism and little support. Unlike previous scholarship which only focuses on the question and limited reasoning revealed in the resolution, this paper reviews the court cases which brought the issue to the attentions of the Supreme Court. We argue that the resolution might be reached due to misinterpretation of a scholarly opinion published before. The resolution makes it clear that it only applies to the private company, and only to the transactions which are not required explicitly by the law of an action from the board or the shareholder meeting. The limited and arbitrary application reveals the deficiencies of the resolution. This paper also investigates two related issues that are briefly mentioned or thoroughly discussed in the court cases reviewed. The first is whether the lack of resolution would lead to the invalidity of a director's self-dealing. Based on insights of this issue, we offer our opinions on the so-called "relationship between internal resolutions and the validity of external corporate acts." The second is about the formality of the board meeting. We argue that more emphasis be put on the substance, and less on the formality. We suggest the doctrine of unanimous consent developed in the UK and the revision of the Company Law in 2018 can shed light on our proposal.