New Zealand: criminalising breaches of directors' duties

The Companies and Limited Partnerships Amendment Bill has been introduced in Parliament: see here. One of the purposes of the Bill is to criminalise breaches of two of the duties owed by directors under the Companies Act (1993), by inserting the following new section (138A) in the 1993 Act:

(1) Every director of a company who does an act, or omits to do an act, in breach of the duty in section 131 (duty of directors to act in good faith and in best interests of company) commits an offence if he or she knows that the act or omission is seriously detrimental to the interests of the company.
(2) Every director of a company who does an act, or omits to do an act, in breach of the duty in section 135 (reckless trading) commits an offence if he or she knows that the act or omission will result in serious loss to the company’s creditors.
(3) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on conviction to the penalties set out in section 373(4).”

An explanatory note for the Bill is available here.