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United Kingdom – Changes to UK Company Law
The United Kingdom’s Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) received Royal Assent on the 26th of October 2023 and introduces important changes to UK company law.
The following measures will come into force as of the 4th of March 2024:
- Statement of lawful purpose. All companies will need to confirm that its intended future activities are lawful.
- Registered email address. All companies will need to provide a registered email address. Companies House will use this email address to communicate with the company – it will not be available to the public.
- Registered office address. These changes mean that companies will not be able to use a PO Box as the registered office address in the future.
- Registrar’s powers. There will be stronger checks on company names, which may give a false or misleading impression to the public. Companies House will use annotations on the register to let users know about potential issues with the information that have been supplied to Companies Hose. Companies House will also be taking steps to clean up the register, using data matching to identify and remove inaccurate information.
The risk of non-compliance
Non-compliance with formal requests received from Companies House may lead to:
- a financial penalty;
- an annotation on the company’s record;
- prosecution.
Should Companies House not be satisfied with a company’s registered office address they will change to a default address, held at Companies House.
The company must provide an appropriate address with evidence of proprietary ownership within 28 days, or Companies House could start the process to strike the company off the register.
For more information on the ECCTA click here