Lifting the AI Veil in Company Law

In September 2024, the United Nations published a report titled “Governing AI for Humanity,” which addressed the international governance of artificial intelligence. In March 2024, the European Union adopted the Artificial Intelligence Act, which establishes uniform legal rules governing the use of artificial intelligence systems. Governments and companies throughout the world are continuously adopting strategies, laws, and guidelines, resulting in a disparate array of global approaches to AI. Amid this global regulatory diversity, the role of AI in company law raises pressing questions about its governance within corporate structures. This article will give an overview of international and EU standards regarding liability issues that arise through the use of artificial intelligence in company law with the aim of identifying potential opportunities and challenges that could be anticipated in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Are robot-directors and AI board members the future of modern companies? If so, how should their liability be treated? This paper analyses several possibilities for AI liability adding to the discussion of a two-fold problem that will emerge in company law: who is liable if AI is used as a tool to help management and board members in decision making, and second, can AI participate in decision-making without human intervention. This paper argues that AI liability should be approached through an extension of traditional addressees of liability’ under the existing doctrines such as duty of care for directors’ liability, and the piercing of the veil doctrine for shareholder liability. It establishes suggestions regarding which situations the veil of the corporate entity should be lifted and when shareholders’ liability should be extended. It suggests that the focus on AI should be on whether the human actors in the company acted reasonably and with the duty of care in using the technology.