Commentary on Sections Accelerated strike-off Section 103: Reduction in notice periods etc for striking off companies
675.This section amends Chapter 1 of Part 31 of the Companies Act 2006 (CA 2006). The section reduces the period after which the registrar may strike off (remove) a company from the register.
676.Under section 1000 of CA 2006 the registrar may only strike off a company if he has reasonable cause to believe it is not carrying on business or is not in operation. Before doing so, the registrar must communicate their intention to strike the company from the register and publish notice of proposed strike off in the Gazette. This entire process takes approximately 6 months and provides the opportunity for the company or third parties to object to the proposed strike off.
677.The amendments made to section 1000 CA 2006 by subsection (2) of this section reduces the time the registrar must wait before sending additional communications to the company from “1 month” to “14 days”, and also enables the registrar to strike off a company 2 months after publication of notice in the Gazette rather than the current 3 months. The combined effect of these changes will be to reduce the period it takes the registrar to strike off a company from approximately 6 to 4 months.
678.Subsection (3) and (4) also accelerate the timescales for striking off a company under sections 1001 CA 2006 (duty on registrar to act in case of company being wound up) and section 1003 CA 2006 (striking off on application by a company). In each of those sections, the registrar must cause notice to be published in the Gazette before striking the company off. The amendments to sections 1001 and 1003 CA 2006 reduce the notice period from 3 months to 2 months.
679.Subsections (6) to (8) ensure that the new timescales only apply to procedures initiated after the commencement of the section.