Quarterly News

Companies Act 2006 update

The government at the end of February 2007 published an overview of the commencement timetable for Companies Act 2006. A number of common commencement dates were announced:

• 1 October 2007
• 6 April 2008
• 1 October 2008.

Further legislation will bring the detailed sections of the new Act into force in line with these dates. Some of the changes you can expect to see over the forthcoming months include:

from October 2007

Private companies will no longer be required to hold an Annual General Meeting.

Written resolutions will no longer be required to be signed by all shareholders.

from April 2008

The filing deadline for private company accounts will reduce from ten to nine months (and from seven to six for public companies). The exemption from preparing consolidated accounts for medium-sized groups will be lost.

Private companies will no longer be required to appoint a company secretary

from October 2008.

New companies will be able to adopt default model Articles of Association. Existing companies will also be able to adopt these new Articles.

Directors will be required to file a service address for the public record at Companies House. This may be their company's address, rather than their residential address.

The precise implementation dates for Companies Act 2006 will be given in secondary legislation. To date there have been two Commencement Orders under the new Act. These have, for example, enabled further use of electronic communications with shareholders and have also repealed certain sections of the 1985 Companies Act.

We will continue to keep you up to date with the proposed changes. If you would like to discuss the impact of the new Act on you and your company please contact us.

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