I’m the majority shareholder and managing director of a company in Malta. A minority shareholder who owns about 15 percent and has never been involved in running the business is now demanding to inspect detailed financial records and correspondence. I feel like this is just an attempt to interfere. Am I obligated to give this access?
Shareholders in a Maltese company generally have certain statutory rights to information under the Companies Act, Chapter 386 of the Laws of Malta, including the right to receive the company's audited financial statements and to inspect certain statutory registers, though the extent of access to more detailed internal records, day-to-day correspondence, or management accounts is more limited and depends on what the articles of association provide, since shareholders do not automatically have the same access as directors to all internal company documents. A blanket refusal to provide the information a shareholder is legally entitled to could expose the company, and potentially you as the controlling director, to a claim that the company's affairs are being conducted in a manner unfairly prejudicial to that shareholder's interests, which the law allows a court to remedy. It is worth distinguishing clearly between what this shareholder is legally entitled to see, such as annual accounts and statutory registers, and what genuinely falls outside their rights, and responding accordingly rather than refusing everything outright, since an overly defensive approach can sometimes strengthen a minority shareholder's case rather than weaken it.
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