Abstract

Time and again the media announce staff changes in the management boards of companies of which the State Treasury is one of the shareholders. The message usually boils down to claiming that those changes are the result of political preferences of decision makers. This phenomenon is sometimes called “distribution of the political loot”. This phenomenon is accompanied by erroneous conviction as to the lack of responsibility of supervisory board members for fault in selection of an incompetent management board member. It seems that the main problem is not that a significant shareholder (including a private one) expresses its preference as to the composition of the management board of a company - after all this is an element of internal corporate relationships tied to the principle of proportionality of economic risk borne by the shareholders. The problem is whether as a result of such preferences persons who are nominated as management board members have no qualifications needed to act for the interest if the company (understood as the resultant of the interests of its shareholders).