Thursday, February 5, 2009

what to do when president of board withholds financial information

Scenario: Managing agent makes mistakes in following year’s budget, drops a zero and budget is off by almost 10 percent. The board also misses the mistake. The president who is up for reelection that year with his voting partner is informed of the mistake by the managing agent , but doesn’t let the other board members know about the mistake until a couple days before the annual meeting, the mistake must have come to light many months ago since it is now April , and this is now last years budget. . The president and his voting crony run unopposed and both are reelected at the annual meeting. After the election is completed, he informs the shareholders at the annual meeting of the mistake made in last year in the budget. Shareholders are unhappy and have a lot to say but annual meeting is moved to new business, no more discussion. My question, doesn’t the board president has the responsibility to let his fellow board members know of a budget problem of this magnitude, when it is discovered, not 6 months later, and since we as shareholders are per the bylaws supposed to be given a copy of the coming years budget and last years expenses, if a mistake was made shouldn’t the shareholders have also been informed when the mistake came to light, not after the elections. Wondering how the shareholder can act on this. IMO the election should be voided since important information was withheld from the shareholders. In addition, IMO the president did not act properly by withholding the fiduciary information from fellow board member and shareholders.

No comments:

Post a Comment