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present a petition for an order under Section 168A
(Alternative remedy to winding up in cases of unfair
prejudice to the interests of minority shareholders).
In addition, under Section 147(3), if from any inspector's report it
appears to the Financial Secretary that any civil proceedings ought in
the public interest to be brought by any company, he may himself bring
such proceedings in the name of and on behalf of the company. From
the terms of Section 148(1)(b) it is clear that such proceedings include
proceedings to recover property.
5.6
It was suggested to us by the Attorney General that the same
argument which led to the introduction of subsection 146(4) in respect
of criminal matters applied in respect of the civil matters covered by
subsection 147(3) i.e. if an inspector learned in the course of his
investigations, information which tended to show that civil proceedings
ought to be commenced immediately by the Financial Secretary on behalf
of the company against one or more of its officers for recovery of
substantial sums of money, the chances of such proceedings ever being
successful could be seriously prejudiced if the inspector had to set
out the information in a formal written report to the Financial Secretary,
which then had to be copied to the company. We accepted this argument,
considering that it may be just as much in the public interest to facilitate
the recovery of misappropriated property as it is to bring offenders to
justice. We therefore suggested to the Attorney General:
(a) that Section 146(4) be amended by adding at the
end after "
....
offence had been committed":
"or that any civil proceedings ought in the public
interest to be brought by any body corporate", and
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