從民事法觀點看揭穿公司面紗原則之適用

Abstract

我國公司法在修法之後，明列第154條第2項：「股東濫用公司之法人地位，致公司負擔特定債務且清償顯有困難，其情節重大而有必要者，該股東應負清償之責。」。從而，我國公司法與世界各國法制趨近，一面肯定除無限公司與兩合公司負無限責任股東外，公司股東對公司所負之責任，原則上以有限責任（Limited Liability）為原則，一面也強調公司控制股東如果惡用公司制度，公司的法人格將被否認。 然而，因公司法第154條第2項的要件文意上略嫌模糊，諸如「濫用」、「負擔特定債務」、「情節重大且有必要」等等，解釋上恐有疑義。因此，本文先行整理比較法之見解，並整理我國現有之判決後，得出我國現行法與比較法下所稱雙叉法則類似，在公司控制股東對公司具有強大之控制力，且有惡用公司制度之具體作為，尤其是以掏空公司資產使公司資產不足為特徵，造成重大環境污染、勞動權益侵害或其他重大的債權人受害情節時，應揭穿公司面紗，且我國法並未針對債權人之類型，而決定有無揭穿公司面紗原則之適用。 但因我國民法上存在侵權行為之直接責任，揭穿公司面紗原則之舉證又比侵權行為門檻更高，公司的債權人如欲要求公司之控制股東負責，為何應捨直接責任尤以保護他人之法律不用而繞道揭穿公司面紗，殊值深思。國外學者亦有以揭穿公司面紗原則破畫有限責任原則，適用上亦有高度不確定性而主張廢除者。而本文認為，為適當維護揭穿公司面紗原則之存立必要性，在損害賠償之範圍上，解釋空間應適當放寬損害賠償之範圍，以確保要件互異之二請求權彼此各自有適用上之擅場。且揭穿公司面紗原則得適用案例中，控制股東的高度不法行為時相伴隨，以此作為正當化賠償範圍擴大的法律基礎，應屬衡平。

After the company law of our country was amended, it clearly stated item 2 of Article 154: "If a shareholder abuses the company's legal person status and causes the company to bear specific debts and it is obviously difficult to repay them, if the circumstances are serious and necessary, the shareholder shall be liable for repayment. .” Therefore, the company law of our country is approaching the legal systems of other countries in the world. On the one hand, it is affirmed that, except for unlimited liability shareholders of unlimited companies and limited liability companies, the liability of company shareholders to the company is in principle based on the principle of limited liability (Limited Liability). Emphasize that if the company's controlling shareholder abuses the company's system, the company's legal personality will be denied. However, because the meaning of Article 154, Item 2 of the Company Law is somewhat vague, such as "abusing", "bearing specific debts", "the circumstances are serious and necessary", etc., there may be doubts in the interpretation. Therefore, this article sorts out the opinions of the comparative law first, and after sorting out the existing judgments in our country, it is concluded that the current law of our country is similar to the so-called double-fork rule under the comparative law. The specific actions of the system, especially those characterized by hollowing out the company’s assets to make the company’s assets insufficient, resulting in major environmental pollution, labor rights violations, or other major creditor victimization circumstances, should expose the corporate veil, and our country’s law does not target the types of creditors , to determine whether the principle of piercing the corporate veil applies. However, since there is direct liability for torts in the civil law of our country, and the threshold for proving the principle of piercing the corporate veil is higher than that of torts, if a company’s creditors want to hold the company’s controlling shareholder accountable, why should they give up direct liability, especially to protect others? It is worth pondering to take a detour to expose the corporate veil. Foreign scholars also advocate the abolition of the principle of limited liability with the principle of piercing the corporate veil, which is highly uncertain in its application. However, this article believes that in order to properly maintain the necessity of the principle of piercing the corporate veil, the scope of damage compensation should be appropriately relaxed in the scope of interpretation, so as to ensure that the two claims with different elements have their own advantages in application. . Moreover, in cases where the principle of piercing the corporate veil is applied, the highly illegal behavior of the controlling shareholder is accompanied by it. As the legal basis for the expansion of the scope of justified compensation, it should be equitable.