NEW LEGISLATION COMING INTO FORCE
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 – Changes to Companies House comes into force March 4, 2024.
To be conversant with the responsibilities and liabilities of this new legislation, the following link will access the Fact Sheets.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/economic-crime-and-corporate-transparency-bill-2022
The factsheets set out the various measures contained in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill.
The bill received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023 and is now the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023: Factsheets
Factsheets giving details of the different measures contained in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.
From: Home Office
Published: 29 February 2024
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 will deliver:
- Reforms to Companies House.
- Reforms to prevent the abuse of limited partnerships.
- Additional powers to seize and recover suspected criminal crypto-assets.
- Reforms to give businesses more confidence to share information in order to tackle money laundering and other economic crime.
- New intelligence gathering powers for law enforcement and removal of nugatory burdens on business.
Companies House Reform:
The Act will reform the role of Companies House and improve transparency over UK companies and other legal entities in order to strengthen our business environment, support our national security and combat economic crime, whilst delivering a more reliable companies register to underpin business activity.
The reforms include:
- Introducing identity verification for all new and existing registered company directors, People with Significant Control, and those delivering documents to the Registrar. This will improve the accuracy of Companies House data, to support business decisions and law enforcement investigations.
- Broadening the Registrar of Companies House’s powers so that the Registrar can become a more active gatekeeper over company creation and custodian of more reliable data, including new powers to check, remove or decline information submitted to, or already on, the companies register.
- Improving the financial information on the register so that the register is more reliable, complete and accurate, reflects the latest advancements in digital technology, and enables better business decisions.
- Providing Companies House with more effective investigation and enforcement powers and introducing better cross-checking of data with other public and private sector bodies. Companies House will be able to proactively share information with law enforcement bodies where they have evidence of anomalous filings or suspicious behaviour.
- Enhancing the protection of personal information provided to Companies House to protect individuals from fraud and other harms.
- Broader reforms to clamp down on misuse of corporate entities.
Limited Partnership Reform
The Act tackles the misuse of limited partnerships, including Scottish limited partnerships, while modernising the law governing them.
The Act:
- Tightens registration requirements.
- Requires limited partnerships to maintain a connection to the UK.
- Increases transparency requirements.
- Enables the Registrar to deregister limited partnerships which are dissolved, no longer carrying on business, or where a court orders that it is in the public interest to do so.