Final answer:
Corporations may indemnify officers and other parties acting under their authority to protect them from personal financial liability, provided their actions are in the company's interest and lawful.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer to the fill-in-the-blank question is 'indemnify.' Corporations may indemnify officers, directors, employees, and agents when they act in good faith and in a manner that is not opposed to the interests of the corporation, with no reason to believe that their conduct was unlawful. Indemnification is a corporate policy that can protect individuals in the organization from personal financial liability should they be sued for actions taken while performing their duties for the corporation.
This concept is distinct from the powers discussed with reference to the Dutch East India Company, which include the ability to establish colonies, punish criminals, and negotiate treaties -- all actions that are not related to indemnification and fall under different contexts of corporate governance and international relations.
The principle of not being able to impair the obligation of contracts relates to the idea that individuals and entities should be able to rely on the legal enforceability of contracts, which also ties back into corporate governance and the fair application of law.