Section 3: Unfit directors of dissolved companies: Northern Ireland
Section 3 makes equivalent amendments to certain Articles of CDD(NI)O02 as did section 2 for the CDDA86. The amendments provide a power to the Department and the official receiver to investigate the conduct of former directors of dissolved companies, for the Department to seek their disqualification where appropriate, and to seek compensation where their actions have led to losses to creditors of dissolved companies.
	Article 9 of CDD(NI)O02 is amended to increase its scope to include former directors of dissolved companies. In particular, Article 9(1) is amended so that if the court is satisfied on application that the person was a director of an insolvent company, or was a former director of a company which was dissolved without becoming insolvent, and their conduct as a director of that company (either taken alone or considered along with their conduct in other companies) makes them unfit to be concerned in the management of a company, it has a duty to make a disqualification order.
	Article 10(2) of CDD(NI)O02 is amended so that where an application for a disqualification order is made by the Department in respect of a former director of a dissolved company, it may not be made after the period which is 3 years beginning on the day that the company was dissolved. Article 10(5A) is inserted, giving a power to the Department or the official receiver to require any person to provide information or documentation which relates to the conduct of a person who was a former director of a dissolved company, as may be reasonably required.
	Article 11B(2) of CDD(NI)O02 is amended so that where a disqualification application is made by the Department under Article 11A (in the circumstances that the person in respect of whom the disqualification application is made influenced the actions of a disqualified former director of a dissolved company), the period within which such an application may be made is 3 years starting with the date on which the company in question was dissolved.
	Article 19A of CDD(NI)O02 is amended so that compensation may be sought where a former director of a dissolved company’s conduct in that company may be considered when seeking compensation for losses to creditors.
	Articles 24D to 25C of CDD(NI)O02 apply that Order to:
Building societies within the meaning of the Building Societies Act 1986
Incorporated friendly societies within the meaning of the Friendly Societies Act 1992
Registered societies within the meaning of the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969
Credit unions
Protected cell companies incorporated under Part 4 of the Risk Transformation Regulations 2017.
	Those Articles of the CDD(NI)O02 are amended so that references to dissolved companies do not apply when the Order is being applied to those bodies.
	Section 3 also provides that the conduct which may be investigated and considered as a result of the amendments to the CDD(NI)O02 made by that section, includes that which occurred in companies which were dissolved prior to commencement, and that which occurred prior to commencement in companies which were not dissolved at that time.