We have a customer is currently incarcerated and we received a POA from his attorney-in-fact. The POA only listed his name but he does operate an business and the business account is with us. Within the POA, the attorney-in-fact have power to conduct business operating transactions.

The attorney-in-fact came in and want the information of the business account like the balance and the transaction information. Can we provide those information to that person even though the POA is in the personal name?

Thanks in advance!

"The business..." Corporation, LLC, sole proprietorship?

INC

The customer is the owner of the business and is the only signer on the business account.

BUMP

The corporation, acting by resolution, appoints its signatories and empowers individuals to act on its behalf. A POA from a corporate officer or even the sole shareholder is not a source of authority to act on the corporation's behalf.

If the power of attorney was issued by the individual, it cannot include the authority to act on behalf of the business if the business is a corporation. The individual owner of the corporation and the corporation are separate legal persons and one cannot appoint an agent for the other.

Theoretically, a corporation can, after having a corporate vote on the matter, issue a power of attorney to an individual with power to act on the corporation's behalf. But it could also simply vote to designate the same individual an authorized signer with authority to obtain account information. The latter is what you should be looking for.

On the Resolution we have on file, the customer is the only person on there.

Lots of corporations have only one officer. But the basic rule is the same whether there is one officer or twenty. The only real difference is that it's a heck of a lot easier to pull together a quorum for business to vote on an authorized signer when there's only one director.

Corporations are set up for a reason. When owners of corporations try to treat their corporations like sole proprietorships, they run into land mines.

Thanks for your help - I relayed the information to the CSR. Hopefully we will be able to get a POA for the corporation to avoid any issues.