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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 21:"Page 10, line 31, leave out ““£200”” and insert ““£1,000””" The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 21, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 22. It is concerned with Clause 28 regarding the registrar’s notice to comply in case of failure with respect to amended articles. The clause deals with the power of the registrar to penalise companies who fail to act on a notice given to send amended articles to the registrar. The question we wish to raise with the Government is whether £200 is an appropriate level of penalty. To many companies, even quite small companies, that is pretty near a petty cash item and may not provide an adequate deterrent. The Committee might like to bear in mind that this penalty is for a failure to comply with the notice already given by the registrar and will not arise merely from oversight. Our amendment, on a probing basis, seeks to raise the level of penalty to £1,000 plus £100 daily thereafter to provide a proper incentive for companies to send the documents required within the allotted time as given by the registrar’s notice. It also means that the penalty would match the level 3 fine proposed in Clause 27(4) that states that the registrar is to be sent a copy of amended articles, which is surely a similar scale of offence. I beg to move.