All certified Colorado B-Corps, organized as Colorado Corporations or Cooperatives, are required to become Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs) by April 1, 2018. Since a number of our clients are B-Corps, we’ve been immersing ourselves in the finer points of the Colorado Public Benefit Corporation Act (PBCA), particularly as applied to Limited Cooperative Associations (LCAs). As originally enacted, the PBCA did not allow LCAs to elect PBC status despite Article 55 and Article 56 cooperatives being able to do so. It appears that the omission was simply an oversight by the drafters that was recently corrected in an amendment that allows LCAs to elect PBC status. While this was a needed amendment to the PBCA, the PBCA is not as cleanly applied to LCAs as to Article 55 and Article 56 cooperatives. Unlike Article 55 and 56 cooperatives, the Colorado Business Corporation Act (CBCA) is not used as a gap filler for the Uniform Limited Cooperative Association Act (ULCAA), which governs LCAs. This presents a challenge to limiting director liability for LCAs under the PBCA. The PBCA is written with the corporate form in mind and references the CBCA with regards to director liability, but is silent as to how use of the PBC form will affect director liability when the entity is an LCA.
Section 7-101-506 of the PBCA lays out the duties of the directors of a PBC:
(1) The board of directors shall manage or direct the business and affairs of a public benefit corporation in a manner that balances the pecuniary interests of the shareholders, the best interests of those materially affected by the corporation’s conduct, and the specific public benefit identified in its articles of incorporation.
(2) A director of a public benefit corporation:
(a) Does not, by virtue of the public benefit provisions of section 7-101-503 (1), have a duty to any person on account of an interest of the person in the public benefit identified in the articles of incorporation or on account of an interest materially affected by the corporation’s conduct; and
Additionally, it permits a PBC to expressly state in its articles of incorporation that a “disinterested director’s failure to satisfy this section does not, for the purposes of section 7-108-401 or 7-108-402 or article 109 of this title 7, constitute an act or omission not in good faith or breach of the duty of loyalty.” The problem for LCAs is that this provision only contemplates a corporation using the PBC form as evidenced by its reference to “articles of incorporation” and the statutory references to the CBCA. The concern for an LCA organized using the PBC form is that its directors may not be protected by the limiting language as it is currently written in the statute. Further, simply altering the express language provided in the PBCA to reference the analogous sections in the ULCAA could render the language unenforceable because it does not track the statutory language of the PBCA. This is not a concern for cooperatives organized under Article 55 or Article 56 because both Articles use the CBCA as a gap filler. ULCAA, on the other hand, was enacted as a stand-alone statute and there was no intent to use the CBCA as a gap filler.
The ideal solution is an amendment to the PBCA that makes the limiting language inclusive of LCAs. In the interim, it is prudent for LCAs using the PBC form to include the limiting language as it is written in the PBCA and include another provision that clearly expresses the intent of the LCA to apply the ULCAA provisions that are analogous to those CBCA provisions regarding limiting director liability. This statement of intent should be drafted to give parties, a court and other interpreters clear guidance to resolve conflicts of interpretation between the PBCA, ULCAA and the Articles of Organization. As a firm, and a PBC, we are invested in the implementation of this statute and look forward to following and participating in its evolution to meet the needs of the businesses that are utilizing the PBC form.
