Breckland Group Holdings Ltd v London & Suffolk Properties Ltd [1989] BCLC 100 is a UK company law case, concerning the right of a majority shareholder to litigate in the company's name.

Facts

A majority shareholder attempted to start litigation in the company's name against the managing director. The board challenged the litigation, arguing it had no authority to do so even with a shareholder resolution.

Judgment

Harmen J held that the litigation could not be continued. After noting that the responsibility of the board is collective, not individual and the power of the board is invested in the whole, he said,

Significance

This was a contentious opinion, and most academic treatises view the law to be that in fact a majority shareholder may by ordinary resolution bring litigation. This is seen to follow implicitly from the rule in Foss v Harbottle

Foss v Harbottle

Foss v Harbottle 67 ER 189 is a leading English precedent in corporate law. In any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself. This is known as "the rule in Foss v Harbottle", and the several important exceptions that have been...

, and the House of Lords judgment in Alexander Ward v Samyang.

See also

• UK company law
• Foss v Harbottle
  Foss v Harbottle
  Foss v Harbottle 67 ER 189 is a leading English precedent in corporate law. In any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself. This is known as "the rule in Foss v Harbottle", and the several important exceptions that have been...
  
  
• Alexander Ward v Samyang [1975] 2 All ER 424
• Danish Mercantile Co Ltd v Beaumont