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Read More>>Companies – all change?
This coming Autumn sees Parliament finalising its proposals to reform the company law in this country. The Companies Bill which previously was known as The Company Law Reform Bill has gone through the committee stage and is expected to receive Royal Assent later this year.
The Bill currently stands at 290 odd pages long and this does not include the secondary legislation which will be required to bring many of the Bill’s clauses into effect.
So what is this Bill all about?
The law in this country provides the legal framework within which business is conducted. It was felt by the Department of Trade and Industry that the present laws did not adequately cater for the needs of business today. As a result, the DTI undertook a review of company law and part of that review was to consider how the current legal framework could be improved and modernised.
The Bill will amend and restate many of the provisions of the Companies Act 1985 creating a single company law regime. The Bill is divided into a number of sections, each dealing with a specific area and in summary.
- What is a company, how it can be created, and what it can be named
- New regulations relating to members (shareholders) and how a company is managed (its officers)
- How companies can take decisions
- Legal safeguards to running a company and how its management are accountable for that company’s actions which have to be transparent
- How a company can raise share capital, deal with takeovers and production of its annual return
- Business names, appointment of auditors,
- General company information
In later articles we will be looking at these provisions in greater detail.
Sarah Shemmings
Silver Shemmings LLP
September 2006