Sunday, April 24, 2016

RICARDO NAVA v. PEERS MARKETING CORP GR L-28120, 25 November 1976

RICARDO NAVA v. PEERS MARKETING CORP
GR L-28120, 25 November 1976
Corporation Law Case Digest by John Paul C. Ladiao (15 March 2016)
(Topic: Subscription Contract)

FACTS:

Teofilo Po as an incorporator subscribed to eighty shares of Peers Marketing Corporation at one hundred pesos a share or a total par value of eight thousand pesos. Po paid two thousand pesos or twenty-five percent of the amount of his subscription. No certificate of stock was issued to him or, for that matter, to any incorporator, subscriber or stockholder.

On April 2, 1966 Po sold to Ricardo A. Nava for two thousand pesos twenty of his eighty shares. In the deed of sale Po represented that he was "the absolute and registered owner of twenty shares" of Peers Marketing Corporation.

Nava requested the officers of the corporation to register the sale in the books of the corporation. The request was denied because Po has not paid fully the amount of his subscription. Nava was informed that Po was delinquent in the payment of the balance due on his subscription and that the corporation had a claim on his entire subscription of eighty shares which included the twenty shares that had been sold to Nava.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the officers of Peers Marketing Corporation can be compelled by mandamus to enter in its stock and transfer book the sale made by Po to Nava?

RULING:

NO.

shares of stock may be transferred by delivery to the transferee of the certificate properly indorsed. "Title may be vested in the transferee by delivery of the certificate with a written assignment or indorsement thereof" (18 C.J.S. 928). There should be compliance with the mode of transfer prescribed by law

The usual practice is for the stockholder to sign the form on the back of the stock certificate. The certificate may thereafter be transferred from one person to another. If the holder of the certificate desires to assume the legal rights of a shareholder to enable him to vote at corporate elections and to receive dividends, he fills up the blanks in the form by inserting his own name as transferee. Then he delivers the certificate to the secretary of the corporation so that the transfer may be entered in the corporation's books. The certificate is then surrendered and a new one issued to the transferee.

That procedure cannot be followed in the instant case because, as already noted, the twenty shares in question are not covered by any certificate of stock in Po's name. Moreover, the corporation has a claim on the said shares for the unpaid balance of Po's subscription. A stock subscription is a subsisting liability from the time the subscription is made. The subscriber is as much bound to pay his subscription as he would be to pay any other debt. The right of the corporation to demand payment is no less incontestable.

In this case no stock certificate was issued to Po. Without stock certificate, which is the evidence of ownership of corporate stock, the assignment of corporate shares is effective only between the parties to the transaction.

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