Campany in receivership - how limited is limited Liability?

[Vixen-am-I]

A relative of my husband is retired but is still part owner of a Limited company - his brother was running the company and today has told him that the company is in receivership...... The brother is saying that they'll have to pay �15K each towards a potential fine that maybe incurred as an environmental commitment may not be met due to the fact the company has gone under. Does anyone know if they can come after shareholders/directors or anything if the company is unable to meet it's commitments due to receivership?

[buildersmate]

Directors of a company must fulfil a minimum set of statutory duties. The link below will produce one version of such a list of duties - this one from the Institute of Directors. There are others that are similar.
http://www.iod.com/intershoproot/eCS/Store/en/ pdfs/dutiesresponsibilities.pdf
In certain circumstances a director may be personally liable for certain failings of the company
It is a potentially valid defence that a director may claim that he/she had reasonable grounds to believe that a competent person was looking after the statutory duties - in this case the brother who seems to be an executive office of the company as well as a director.
The example you cite is strange; what I think you may mean is that the company is in breach of a statutory duty to do with the environment, that may result in a fine for the breach, the company can't pay and so has collapsed.
In particular, sections of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 are covered by a duty on directors, but there are others. What happened? - pollution into a river, perhaps?

[Skyline D]

They can't come after shareholders at all. The shareholders liability is limited to the investment he initially made. That's the point in the name.

They may very well be able to come after directors though even if they actually knew nothing of the circumstances. Ignorance is no great excuse. If the gentleman in question was a director of the business and remained so in name even after "retiral" then he may well be deemed to "ought to have known" what was going on and be deemed in some way liable depending on the circumstances. With directorship comes responsibilities, it isn't just a name.

He may also have stood personal guarantor for particular liabilities, most usually to the bank?