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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. A143A:"Page 301, line 2, leave out paragraph (a)." The noble Lord said: We have moved now to Clause 623, ““Restrictions on disclosure””, an issue that has given rise to some comment to us. The protections from disclosure of information about an individual or a business provided by Clause 623 do not apply to any disclosure made for the purpose of facilitating the carrying out by the Takeover Panel of any of its functions. It has been argued to us that this is a very broad statement, and that it seems to allow the panel to disclose information in any case so long as it can attribute it to facilitate the carrying out of its functions. That could be argued to cover almost any disclosure made by the panel at all in any circumstances. With that in mind I return to the purpose behind the amendment, which is not to hinder the workings of the panel, but rather to probe the Government on the drafting in this case. We see no compelling argument as to why this exclusion is so widely drafted. I am sure if the Government come up with a case we would have no problem accepting it, but it seems unnecessarily wide, and I hope the Government will consider narrowing it. I therefore beg to move.