After receiving Royal Assent in March last year, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 has slowly been coming into force and making changes to companies’ internal procedures.

Currently, companies are required to hold certain statutory registers, such as registers of directors, shareholders and secretaries, among other things. But as of 6th April 2016, a new register, known as the PSC register, will have to be kept which holds a record of all people with significant control over the company. A person with significant control is defined as someone who:

  • Owns more than 25% of the company’s shares;
  • Holds more than 25% of the company’s voting shares’
  • Holds the right to appoint or remove the majority of directors;
  • Has the right to, or actually exercises significant influence or control; or
  • Holds the right to, or actually exercises significant control over a trust or company which meets one of the first four conditions.

The filing of a company’s annual return is also being replaced from June 2016 by the filing of a document known as a ‘confirmation statement’. The filing of this statement will be necessary at least once per year and it will require you to check and confirm that the information currently held by Companies House is correct.

Similarly to filing an annual return, there will be a fee payable upon filing the confirmation statement, however, this fee will only be payable once even if you update your records multiple times in the same year.

Upon filing your company’s first confirmation statement, you will also have to notify Companies House of all people with significant control of the company, as per your new PSC register.

Also from June 2016, private companies will have the ability to hold their company information on the public register held by Companies House, rather than in their own statutory registers. This is applicable to the registers of members, directors, secretaries, directors’ residential addresses and people with significant control.

However, this process is completely voluntary if you would prefer not to have such information so easily available to the public.

This is just a small taste of the changes brought about by the Act, however, if you require any advice on this new statute or are unsure exactly how your company will be affected, please contact our Corporate Commercial department on 01245 584515 or [email protected]