Clause 86
Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]
2:00 pm
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)
We move on to part 6 of the Bill, and team No. 1 comes back into play. [Interruption.] No, I did not mean it like that. Before we kick off, may I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch on his professional delivery, backed up by his extensive experience in the subject before us? That really showed, and totally hid the fact that it was his first outing on the Front Bench—the first of many, I am quite sure.
We move on to part 6 and clause 86 stand part. I would like to make a general point on the registered offices. It is important for a company to have a registered office, not least because it is a single registered location, of which other companies and persons have public notice. That is vital for deliveries, particularly of time-critical documents such as service of court documents, which require proof of service.
Most company documents are filed after an event, as a record of something that has happened, such as a change of director. However, that is not the case with a change of registered office, for which the filing of the notice itself triggers the timing of the date of the change. So it is an important form. The problem is that we hear more and more reports about people impersonating company directors—I brought that matter up last Tuesday. That involves little more than signing a form and sending it to Companies House, but once the fake directors have been established, they can send in a change of registered office form. That effectively means that the real directors stop getting notices of contracts signed in the name of the company by the fake directors using the fake registered office.
That seems to be a growing problem. Will the Minister let us know whether she has any details about the extent of the problem, whether she has plans for further security measures to stop it happening or whether she thinks that it might require further amendments?