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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. A141:"Page 300, line 27, leave out ““legible and intelligible”” and insert ““hard””" The noble and learned Lord said: In moving the amendment in the name of my noble friend, I shall speak also to government Amendments Nos. A142, A143, A177, A178 and A213. Clause 622 provides, for the first time, statutory powers for the Takeover Panel to obtain documents and information reasonably required by the panel in the exercise of its functions. These new powers are considered necessary to meet requirements of the takeovers directive. Noble Lords will be well aware that, increasingly, information is not contained in a paper document or similar form capable of being read. Very common examples of this concern information held in electronic form, on computer disks, text messages and BlackBerrys. The clause would not be complete in its scope if it did not permit the panel to obtain such information in a readable form, in addition to existing hard copy documents. Clause 622(9) already ensures that the panel can obtain information that is held, for example, in electronic form as a readable document—but we think it does that a little inelegantly. The current amendments seek to turn a simple concept into clear English, by substituting ““hard copy””, which is defined in the later amendment, for ““legible and intelligible”” information. Amendments Nos. A177 and A178 make similar changes to provisions in Part 23 in relation to company investigations. There are also two amendments to amend Clause 653 and Section 434 of the Companies Act 1985 to rectify an anomaly in the parallel powers relating to company inspections, by allowing the taking of copies or extracts of documents produced. Finally, Amendment No. A213 tables a new clause before Clause 762 simplifying the existing drafting by inserting a general provision covering the meaning of ““hard copy””, ““electronic communications”” and related expressions wherever they appear in the Companies Act. That is the definition of provisions to which I drew attention a moment ago. I beg to move.