Pre-membership conduct is not excluded from the scope of s 232 oppression claims as a matter of legal principle; the temporal relevance of such conduct is a matter for trial, not interlocutory strike-out. The fact that a company is a closely held family company does not alter the legal principles applicable to oppression — it affects only how those principles operate on the particular facts. The conduct of concluded litigation by a company is capable of forming part of an oppression claim without constituting a collateral attack on earlier court findings, provided the claim addresses the manner of conduct rather than challenging the earlier court's determinations.
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