Clause 32
Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]
5:00 pm
David Howarth (Shadow Minister (Energy), Trade & Industry; Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. The deep conservatism of the drafting of company objects over the decades means that previous legal positions are left in companies’ objects at a lower layer and new objects or ways of thinking are layered over those, and we end up in an extraordinary situation where we have restricted objects, with fewer and fewer restricted objects placed above them. That is confusing.
I return to the basic principle that members of companies are entitled to do as they wish with their companies and with the way in which they set up their businesses. The problem with the way in which lawyers have given advice to companies on the subject is a separate problem.