To the Issue of Violation of the Rights of Minority Shareholders and Ways to Protect these Rights

Abstract

In Russian Federation in joint-stock companies there is a special category of shareholders whose rights are often violated or restricted in any way. These are minority shareholders. This Article is devoted to the research of their legal status. In many countries, including Russia, the legislation contains a number of the norms aimed at protecting minority shareholders.The author expresses opinion that it is necessary to consider the balance of interests between minority and majority shareholders.The author notices that non-compliance with such balance is capable to lead to negative consequences not only for minority shareholders, but also for joint-stock company in general, for the relations between joint-stock company and its founders.The purpose of this article is to identify the main possible violations of the rights of minority shareholders and to analyze the main ways to protect these rights.Taking into account the established practice, the author notes that today there is enough ways to protect the rights of minority shareholders which are affirmed in the existing normative legal acts. In article, both jurisdictional, and not jurisdictional ways of protection are considered. Nevertheless, the author comes to the conclusion that the legislation in this field is not perfect, contains gaps that leads to ambiguous legal regulation in this sphere. It is offered to make changes to the legislation and to expand a circle of possible ways of protection by resolving the arbitration proceedings.