A stakeholder is any person, group or organization that has an interest in what an entity does, or that is affected by what it does. The term reaches past the owners to employees, customers, suppliers, lenders, regulators and the surrounding community. In an interpleader action US courts use the word for a narrower role, a disinterested third party holding money or property that two or more parties claim.
The Narrower Stakeholder Sense in US Law
That role turns on holding rather than owning. Such a stakeholder may file an interpleader suit to avoid multiple liability, having a federal district court determine the party that should have the property, and insurance companies are often the stakeholder plaintiffs in these actions (Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute, Wex, stakeholder).
The statute sets out that role without using the word. District courts have original jurisdiction over an action of interpleader or in the nature of interpleader filed by a party holding money or property of the value of $500 or more, or that has issued a note, bond, certificate, policy of insurance or other instrument of that value, or that is under a written or unwritten obligation of that amount, if two or more adverse claimants of diverse citizenship claim or may claim to be entitled to it and the plaintiff has deposited it into the registry of the court or given bond (28 U.S.C. § 1335(a)).
The rule does not ask that party to concede it owes anything. Joinder for interpleader is proper even though the plaintiff denies liability in whole or in part to any or all of the claimants (Fed. R. Civ. P. 22(a)(1)(B)).
Who a Firm’s Work Answers To
The profession names its audience directly. The accounting profession’s public consists of clients, credit grantors, governments, employers, investors, the business and financial community, and others who rely on the objectivity and integrity of members to maintain the orderly functioning of commerce (AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, The Public Interest, ET sec. 0.300.030).
Financial reporting draws the circle tighter. Existing and potential investors, lenders and other creditors are the primary users that general purpose reports are directed to, and regulators and members of the public may find those reports useful even though the reports are not primarily directed to them (FASB Concepts Statement No. 8, Chapter 1, paragraphs OB5 and OB10), a point worked through in financial accounting.
So the stakeholder list a firm draws for a client is wider than the audience its statements are built for. Holding an interest is not by itself a claim on the reporting.
Stakeholder Is Not Stockholder
A stockholder owns shares and the rights that attach to them, the vote, a dividend once the board declares one, and inspection for a proper purpose, while a stakeholder can hold a real interest without owning any stock, a separation set out in stockholder.
Common Questions
A bank is one, because repayment turns on how the business performs. So is an employee whose job depends on the business continuing to operate, and so is a supplier carrying an unpaid invoice.
No standard fixes a count of four. The division drawn most often is internal against external, employees and owners inside the entity set against lenders, suppliers, customers and regulators outside it. Any four-part list comes from a particular framework, not from an accounting or legal authority.
Accountably places trained offshore accountants and tax preparers inside US CPA and EA firms, and a trial task lets your own reviewer grade real work before a client file depends on it.
