The Phenomenon of Corporate Conflict: Concept, Subjects, Interests

Abstract

Based on the results of a study of current judicial law enforcement practice, the article examines the phenomenon of corporate conflict. The author compares the basic approaches to the definition of the concept, and highlights the qualifying signs of a corporate conflict. The author highlights the key (generic concept), essential (subjects and relations) and significant (interests) elements of the corporate conflict definition. The operation of this structure in the field of corporate governance, preparation for litigation, actual participation in arbitration proceedings and administrative proceedings is associated with certain applied problems associated with the lack of a definition of this concept not only in the text of the law, but also in the generalizing documents of the highest court country, the substantive discrepancy between the criteria of this institution proposed by judicial practice and the starting (legal) definition of a corporate conflict, the diversity of criteria that provide, in the author’s opinion, an excessively wide fairway for situational and evaluative judgments in the process of assessing evidence of interested parties in corporate discussions, administrative proceedings and litigation disputes. The author emphasizes the openness and intensity of the corporate conflict as qualifying features of its definition, and the author comes to the conclusion that a corporate conflict cannot be considered simply a disagreement of the parties, but only an active confrontation or dispute between the parties. The author separates the corporate conflict from other types of conflicts: operational, organizational, interpersonal and legal. The paper describes the types of possible participants in a corporate conflict. Referring to specific examples from the sphere of domestic arbitration practice, the author pays great attention to the society itself and stakeholders, as independent subjects of a corporate conflict. The author emphasizes the vagueness and ambiguity of some terms that qualify corporate conflict, such as “goals”, “interests”, “motives”. The work reveals the motivational, causal side of a corporate conflict, considers the diversity of interests of the parties that are the subject of a corporate conflict.