Exclusion of a Member as a Means of Forced Termination of a Corporate Transaction

The paper addresses theoretical and practical issues related to the implementation of the mechanism for excluding a member from a business entity in Russian corporate law. The author analyzes an exclusion mechanism from the perspectives of economic analysis of law and the concept of a corporation as a transaction between its participants and management. The aim of the study is to theoretically conceptualize the institution of member exclusion as a form of contract termination and to describe specific issues related to its application. The author concludes that the mechanism of excluding a member is modeled on the basis of judicial contract termination due to a substantive breach, adapted to the peculiarities of corporate transactions. The requirement for the volume of corporate rights that must belong to the plaintiff in a lawsuit for the exclusion of another member, in the author’s opinion, does not correspond to the nature of corporate relations and can be replaced with alternative barriers. The grounds for exclusion proposed by the lawmaker, taking into account the normative explanations of higher courts, essentially align with the criteria for material breach of contract and provide a balance between the universality and specificity of guidelines for arbitration courts in particular disputes. The author suggests the need to update legislative regulation of the institution of excluding a member from a business entity by adopting a number of dispositive norms. This includes establishing compensation for an excluded member and defining criteria for a substantive breach of a corporate transaction as grounds for exclusion.

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