Commentary Part 16: Audit Chapter 5: Quoted Companies: Right of Members to Raise Audit Concerns at Accounts Meeting Section 527: Members’ power to require website publication of audit concerns
809.This section creates a new right for members of a quoted company – if they have a large enough holding in the company, or there are enough of them – to ask the company to publish on a website a statement raising questions about the accounts, or about the departure of an auditor, that they propose to bring up at the next meeting where the accounts are to be discussed.
810.Subsection (2) specifies the thresholds the members have to meet, which are the same as for shareholders who want to ask a company to circulate a statement under section 314: they must either have 5% of the total voting rights, or there must be at least 100 of them, holding shares on which there has been paid up an average sum per member of at least £100. Subsection (4) sets out the mechanics of transmitting the request to the company: it may be in hard copy or electronic.
811.Subsection (5) protects the company if members abuse the new right, e.g. by requesting a defamatory statement to be published. It enables the company, or someone else such as the auditor or a director, to apply to the court, and the court can then determine whether the right is being abused, in which case the company is not obliged to publish the statement. Subsection (6) provides that the court can order the shareholders who requested publication to pay some or all of the costs of the proceedings.