News Story: Companies House/Company law reform

On 22 January 2024, Companies House announced that it is aiming to introduce the first set of measures brought in by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA 2023) on 4 March 2024 (Blog Post: Get ready for changes to UK company law). However, this is dependent on the requisite secondary legislation having been implemented, with Companies House making clear that 4 March 2024 is the earliest date possible.

The measures that are slated to be introduced on 4 March 2024 include:

• greater powers for the registrar to check, query or reject information submitted to Companies House and to request supporting evidence;
• measures to clean up the register, using data matching to identify and remove inaccurate information;
• greater control over company names;
• new rules for registered office addresses and a new obligation for all companies to register an appropriate email address;
• changes to the requirements for registering new companies to include a new statement by subscribers that the company is being formed for a lawful purpose. Companies will be required to confirm in the annual confirmation statement that their future activities will be lawful;
• the ability to annotate the register when information appears confusing or misleading (see FC Feature 18 January 2024 for regulations that were published in this regard); and
• the registrar's new powers to share information with other government departments and law enforcement agencies.

The registrar had previously indicated that she expected these measures to be introduced in 'early 2024' (see FC Feature 26 October 2023).

For further information on provisions in ECCTA 2023 that will substantially reform the registrar's role and powers and other measures to improve the accuracy of data on Companies House registers, see FC Overview 9 November 2023.

First published on the Corporate News Service on 22 January 2024.

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