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Companies Act - new requirements
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The Companies Act has been amended and updated after several years of review and consultation. It was granted Royal Assent at the end of 2006, with the first phases of the Act to take effect from the end of December 2006. Subsequent changes will be implemented in phases over the course of 2007 and 2008.
One of the first changes to take place is the requirement on how companies must display statutory company information. Under the previous version of the Act which came into force before the Internet era, it was only necessary to provide company registration details (Companies House registration number, registered company name and registered company address) on written or printed correspondence. However, it’s now compulsory to include such information on any Internet or email communication. Companies should therefore review their websites and email footers to incorporate these legal requirements. There are no guidelines in the Act on where or how the information must be displayed, which allows companies the flexibility to decide for themselves. On a website, it could be displayed on one page only (such as the welcome page or a ‘legal information’ page) or in small print at the bottom of every page. With emails, many companies have opted to include an automatic ‘statutory information’ header or footer on every email sent from a company email account.
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