Commentary Part 22: Information about Interests in Company’s Shares.Background
1107.The provisions of this Part concern a public company’s right to investigate who has an interest in its shares. They replace equivalent provisions in Part 6 of the 1985 Act. These are purely domestic provisions, and are not required by European Community Law.
1108.The automatic disclosure obligations currently contained in sections 198 to 211 of Part 6 of the 1985 Act will be replaced by regulations under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, as amended by Part 43 of this Act, in implementation of the Transparency Obligations Directive. In the regulations, a different concept of “interest in voting rights” will be adopted in order to implement the Transparency Obligations Directive.
1109.This Part re-enacts, with certain modifications, the disclosure obligations pursuant to a notice issued by the company contained in sections 212 to 219 of the 1985 Act. There is no change to the definition of “interest in shares” for this purpose.
1110.The main changes to section 212 of the 1985 Act and related provisions are:
	making clear that notices are not required to be in hard copy, and therefore can be given in electronic form (section 793 read in conjunction with the provisions in Part 37 on the sending or supplying of documents or information);
	providing for how information is to be entered on the register of interests disclosed when the name of the present holder of the shares is not known or there is no present holder (section 808);
	removing the requirement on the company to verify third party information supplied in response to a section 793 notice before putting it on the register (section 817);
	requiring a company to refuse a request to inspect the register if it is not satisfied that the request is made for a proper purpose (section 812);
	removing the requirement for a company to keep information on the register in relation to entries made more than six years previously (section 816).