New law: First introduction dates announced for new laws for limited companies

A Companies House blog has made it clear that the government plans to introduce the following new law in early 2024.

• Power for Companies House to reject, query and/or remove information from the public register that appears suspicious, fraudulent, etc or might ‘impact upon the integrity of the register’ because it is eg incorrect or inconsistent.
• A power for Companies House to share data with other public and law enforcement agencies.
• New criteria to be used to determine whether an address can be used as a registered office address – whether it is an ‘appropriate’ address.
• A new requirement to provide a company email address to Companies House (which will not be visible on the public register).
• New restrictions on the characters that can be used in company names, and new powers to reject names that ‘facilitate’ dishonesty or deception, contain computer code or suggest a connection with foreign governments, etc or international organisations such as NATO.
• New requirement to state, in the formation of a new company and on each Confirmation Statement filed, that the company is being formed/its future activities will be for lawful purposes.
• ‘Cleaning’ the register by, for example, de-duplicating information.

Introduction dates have yet to be announced for the following changes in the new law.

• A new obligation to verify the identities of new and existing directors, and a similar ID verification regime for new and existing ‘persons with significant control’ (PSCs).
• New restrictions on the individuals permitted to file information at Companies House – including that either they are ID verified or, if they are third-party agents such as professional advisers or agents forming and administering companies for clients, they are registered with Companies House as ‘Authorised Corporate Service Providers’.
• Restricting use of corporate directors, unless every director of the corporate director is a human being.
• A requirement for companies to collect and register full names and service addresses for every member and, for share companies, to submit a one-off list of members’ details to Companies House.
• Abolition of rules allowing small companies and micro-entities to file abridged and filleted accounts.
• Power for Companies House to require information to be filed digitally, including accounts.
• Power to restrict a company from shortening its accounting reference period except in certain circumstances.
• A requirement to maintain the register of members internally, as a ‘local register’, thus removing the option for a company to ask Companies House to maintain it on its ‘central register’.
• Abolition of the requirement to keep any other statutory registers as ‘local registers’ - instead they must be maintained by Companies House on its ‘central register’.
• Extension of Companies House powers to ‘suppress’ personal details filed.
• A new power to impose automatic civil penalties for failure to comply with a wide range of Companies Act obligations.

Operative date

• Early 2024

Recommendation

• Check out the Companies House blog on the GOV.UK website.