New South Wales Consolidated Acts

TRUSTEE COMPANIES ACT 1964 - SECT 31

31 Managing director and others may represent trustee company and be personally responsible

(1) In all cases in which the personal attendance of an executor, administrator, trustee, receiver, committee, manager or guardian is required in any court or elsewhere, a trustee company shall be entitled to make such attendance in the person of the managing director, manager, assistant manager or secretary or by such other officer of the trustee company as may from time to time be appointed by the board of directors for the purpose.

(2) All declarations, affidavits, statements of defence or other statements required by law to be made on oath may be made and sworn on behalf of a trustee company by the managing director, manager, assistant manager or secretary or by such other officer of the trustee company as may from time to time be appointed by the board of directors for the purpose.

(3) In every case where a trustee company obtains a grant of probate or letters of administration or acts as trustee, receiver, committee, manager or guardian, the directors, managing director, manager and assistant manager of the trustee company in their proper persons and estates shall be individually and collectively responsible for the due administration during the respective tenures of their respective offices of the estates entrusted to the trustee company and shall in their own proper persons be liable by process of attachment, commitment for contempt or by other process to all courts having jurisdiction in that behalf in the event of disobedience to the rules, orders and decrees of such courts made against the trustee company in the same manner and to the same extent as if such managing director, manager, assistant manager and director had personally obtained the grant of probate or letters of administration and had acted as executor, administrator, trustee, receiver, committee, manager or guardian and as if the rule, order or decree had been made against them personally instead of against the trustee company.

(4) Notwithstanding the personal liability of the managing director, manager, assistant manager and directors the capital both paid and unpaid and all other assets of the trustee company shall remain liable for any pecuniary loss which may be occasioned by or which may happen through any breach of trust or duty committed, or any neglect in the performance of any trust or duty by the trustee company or any of its officers, whether such trust or duty is implied by the law or expressly conferred or imposed by the instrument under which the trustee company acts.

(5) At least 3 directors of every trustee company shall be natural persons who ordinarily reside within Australia.

(6) One of the directors referred to in subsection (5) shall, where a trustee company has a managing director, be the managing director.