South Carolina General Assembly
113th Session, 1999-2000

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Bill 4875


Indicates Matter Stricken
Indicates New Matter


(Text matches printed bills. Document has been reformatted to meet World Wide Web specifications.)

Indicates Matter Stricken

Indicates New Matter

AMENDED

May 24, 2000

H. 4875

Introduced by Rep. D. Smith

S. Printed 5/24/00--H.

Read the first time April 5, 2000.

            

A BILL

TO AMEND SECTION 33-3-102, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO THE GENERAL POWERS OF CORPORATIONS, SO AS TO PROVIDE THE POWERS EXTEND TO THOSE GRANTED BY CHAPTER 21 OF TITLE 33.

Amend Title To Conform

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Section 33-1-400 of the 1976, as last amended by Act 328 of 1998, is further amended to read:

"Section 33-1-400. As used in Chapters 1 through 19 of this title:

(1) 'Agreement' includes any a valid agreement, written or oral, of the shareholders or between any of the shareholders and the corporation as to the affairs of the corporation and the conduct of its business. The bylaws of a corporation constitute are an agreement.

(2) 'Articles of incorporation' include includes amended and restated articles of incorporation and articles of merger.

(3) 'Authorized shares' means the shares of all classes a domestic or foreign corporation is authorized to issue.

(4) 'Corporation' or 'domestic corporation' means a corporation for profit, which is not a foreign corporation, incorporated under pursuant or subject to the provisions of Chapters 1 through 20 of this Title. 'Corporation' or 'domestic corporation' also may include a 'nonprofit' corporation to the extent permitted by the provisions of Section 33-20-103.

(5) 'Conspicuous' means so written so that a reasonable person against whom the writing is to operate should have noticed notice it. For example, printing in italics, boldface, or contrasting color, or typing in capitals or underlined is conspicuous.

(6) 'Deliver' includes mail.

(7) 'Distribution' means a direct or indirect transfer of money or other property, (except its own shares), or incurrence incurring of indebtedness by a corporation to or for the benefit of its shareholders in respect of any of to its shares. A distribution may be in the form of a declaration or payment of a dividend;, a purchase, redemption, or other acquisition of shares;, a distribution of indebtedness;, or otherwise other distribution.

(8) 'Effective date of notice' is defined in Section 33-1-410.

(9) 'Electronic transmission' or 'electronically transmitted' means a process of communication not directly involving the physical transfer of paper that is suitable for the retention, retrieval, and reproduction of information by the recipient.

(10) 'Employee' includes an officer but not a director., A unless a director may accept accepts duties that make him also an employee.

(10)(11) 'Entity' includes corporation and foreign corporation; not-for-profit corporation; profit and not-for-profit unincorporated association; business trust, estate, partnership, trust, and two or more persons having a joint or common economic interest; and state, United States, and foreign government.

(11)(12) 'Foreign corporation' means a corporation for profit incorporated under pursuant to a law other than the law of this State.

(12)(13) 'Governmental subdivision' includes authority, county, district, and municipality.

(13)(14) 'Includes' denotes a partial definition.

(14)(15) 'Individual' includes the estate of an incompetent or deceased individual.

(15)(16) 'Means' denotes an exhaustive definition.

(16)(17) 'Notice' is defined in Section 33-1-410.

(17)(18) 'Person' includes individual and entity.

(18)(19) 'Principal office' means the office (in or out of this State) so designated in the annual report where the in-state or out-of-state location of the principal executive offices of a domestic or foreign corporation are located as designated in the annual report.

(19)(20) 'Proceeding' includes civil suit and criminal, administrative, and investigatory action, and formal or informal arbitration.

(20)(21) 'Record date' means the date established under by Chapter 6 or 7 on which a corporation determines the identity of its shareholders for purposes of Chapters 1 through 20 of this title.

(21)(22) 'Secretary' means the corporate officer to whom the board of directors has delegated responsibility under pursuant to Section 33-8-400(c) for custody of the minutes of the meetings of the board of directors and of the shareholders and for authenticating records of the corporation.

(22)(23) 'Shares' means the units into which the proprietary interests in a corporation are divided.

(23)(24) 'Shareholder' means the person in whose name shares are registered in the records of a corporation or the beneficial owner of shares to the extent of the rights granted by a nominee certificate are on file with a corporation. To the extent provided in a corporation's articles of incorporation, Creditors of a corporation may have the rights of a shareholder as allowed in the corporation's articles of incorporation.

(24)(25) 'State', when referring to a part of the United States, includes a state, and commonwealth, (and their agencies and governmental subdivisions), a territory, and insular possession, (and their agencies and governmental subdivisions), of the United States and the District of Columbia.

(25)(26) 'Subscriber' means a person who subscribes for shares in a corporation, whether before or after incorporation.

(26)(27) 'United States' includes district, authority, bureau, commission, department, and any other agency of the United States.

(27)(28) 'Voting group' means all shares of one or more classes or series that under the articles of incorporation or Chapters 1 through 20 of this Title are entitled to may vote and be counted together collectively on a matter at a meeting of shareholders pursuant to the articles of incorporation or Chapters 1 through 20 of this Title. All Shares entitled by the articles of incorporation or Chapters 1 through 20 of this Title to vote generally on the matter are for that purpose a single voting group.

(28)(29) 'Public corporation' means a corporation, that has a class of whose equity securities are registered with a federal agency under pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or a successor act to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934."

B. Section 33-7-220 of the 1976 Code is amended to read:

"Section 33-7-220. (a) A shareholder may vote his shares in person or by proxy.

(b) A shareholder or his agent or attorney in fact may appoint a proxy to vote or otherwise act for him, including giving waivers and consents, by signing an appointment form, either personally or by his attorney-in-fact or by an electronic transmission of appointment. The electronic transmission must contain or be accompanied by sufficient information to determine that the transmission appointing the proxy is authorized. All proxies A proxy must have an effective date. If not dated by the person giving the proxy, the effective date of the proxy is the date on which it is received by the person appointed to serve as proxy, which and that date must be noted by the appointee on the appointment form.

(c) An appointment of a proxy is effective when the appointment form or electronic transmission is received by the secretary or other officer or agent authorized to tabulate votes. Unless a time of expiration is otherwise specified, an appointment is valid for eleven months.

(d) An appointment of a proxy is revocable by the shareholder unless the appointment form or electronic transmission conspicuously states that it is irrevocable and the appointee is:

(1) a pledgee;

(2) a person who purchased or agreed to purchase the shares;

(3) a creditor of the corporation who extended it credit under terms requiring the appointment;

(4) an employee of the corporation whose employment contract requires the appointment; or

(5) a party to a voting agreement created under Section 33-7-310.

(e) The death or incapacity of the shareholder appointing a proxy does not affect the right of the corporation to accept the proxy's authority unless notice of the death or incapacity is received by the secretary or other officer or agent authorized to tabulate votes before the proxy exercises his authority under pursuant to the appointment.

(f) An appointment made irrevocable under as provided by subsection (d) is revoked when the interest with which it is coupled is extinguished.

(g) A transferee for value of shares subject to an irrevocable appointment may revoke the appointment if he did not know of its existence when he acquired the shares and the existence of the irrevocable appointment was not noted conspicuously on the certificate representing the shares or on the information statement for shares without certificates.

(h) Subject to Section 33-7-240 and to an express limitation on the proxy's authority appearing on the face of the appointment form or electronic transmission, a corporation is entitled to may accept the proxy's vote or other action as that of the shareholder making the appointment.

(i) No A proxy can may not be solicited on the basis of any proxy statement or other communication, written or oral, containing any a statement which, at the time and in light of the circumstances under which it was made, was false or misleading with respect to any a material fact or which omits to state any a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made therein not false or misleading.

(j) A copy, facsimile transmission, or other reliable reproduction of the appointment form or electronic transmission created pursuant to subsection (b) of this section may be substituted or used instead of the original appointment form or electronic transmission for all purposes for which the original appointment form or electronic transmission is used, except that the copy, facsimile transmission, or other reproduction must be a complete reproduction of the entire original appointment form or electronic transmission."

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