Board Meeting - In Person / Teleconferencing ??

WDVladB

I am a director of an Irish company which has a French director who is based in Paris. Can anyone advise if it is ok to have our board meetings by way of a teleconference or if both of us must be present in Dublin for the meetings ??

antoinolachtnai

It depends what it says in your articles of association, I think.

MyPerfectCousin

I don't even think you need to have an actual meeting, if all the directors simply sign off saying a meeting was held at a certain time and date. Your accountant can advise.

AndyJB

WDVladB wrote: »

I am a director of an Irish company which has a French director who is based in Paris. Can anyone advise if it is ok to have our board meetings by way of a teleconference or if both of us must be present in Dublin for the meetings ??

Hi,
Great idea, pity our various govt depts and quangos wouldn't do the same!

There should be no problem with this as long as the audio/video stream quality is very good and all parties are happy to take part. FYI I took part in a Skype conference call recently, the quality was terrible so call was abandoned for a face-2-face.

If it works make more use of it and save yourselves the price of needless flights.

It would be advisable to have meetings minuted, then distributed to all attendees quickly.

Best of luck.
AJB

tofueater

Hi!
I'm new to boards and can't find how to start a new thread so apologies for butting into this thread, but it's the nearest one I can find to my own question.
Does anyone know a reliable provider of free teleconferencing calls?
I need to find one for a study group I'm involved in.

Many thanks.

shoutman

I'm with antoinolachtnai on this one, AFAIK it's dictated by the articles of association. If I was a board member I'd make sure that it isn''t explicitly stated that the meeting is to be held with all members at the same location. Otherwise this could be used to oust you at some future point in time (obviously for the vast majority this wouldn't be a concern, but it is worth thinking about).

In terms of software, I used a program called mikogo about a year ago when I was doing some web conferencing and it worked a treat. It's free and does the job.

WDVladB

SKYPE is the only provider of free teleconferencing that I am aware of.

robinph

A common line in the articles that I'd see regarding directors meetings is along the lines of "The notice for holding a directors meeting must specify...how it is proposed that they should communicate if they are not in the same place during the meeting...it is irrelevant if they are in teh same place or how they communicate with each other ". Then various things about using electronic means in as broad terms as possible so that the next form of email type communication isn't excluded once someone gets round to inventing it.