Non-compliant companies facing consequences

The National Business

COMPANIES de-registered for non-compliance of regulations would face several consequences such as status being changed from “registered” to “removed”, an Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) officer says.
Acting registrar of companies Harriet Kokiva said it also meant those companies would not be allowed to conduct any sort of business activities.
“We will change their status from ‘registered’ to ‘removed’ and that means that they are dead,” she said.
“They are not allowed to carry out any business or transact any business in any way or form.”
Kokiva said as per Section 372 of the Companies Act 1997, all the assets of those removed companies would now be vested on the registrar of companies.
“Financial institutions will also be notified,” she said.
“If they (removed companies) have any accounts with the banks, we will request for those accounts to be closed and their balances to be transferred to the trust account of the registrar of companies office.
“If those removed companies have properties like land, houses or buildings, any rents that they have been receiving have to be redirected to the registrar of companies’ office.
“Companies that have been removed can apply for a reinstatement and we can put them back onto the register again.”
Kokiva said there were two ways that the companies could apply for reinstatement:

  • Apply to the registrar within six years of being de-registered; or,
  • Apply to the court.

“For companies which have been removed from the register of the registered companies, strictly contact us if they think their company has been removed in error or if they have been operating at that time but have not complied and want to approach us can apply for reinstatement administratively,” she said.
“The administration fee is K3,000 on top of outstanding returns that they must file.
“The usual filing fee is K300 per annual return and K1,000 for late annual returns.
“Just an alert to other companies, this is the first batch of 5,000 non-complaint companies.
“The notice of intention to deregister the second batch of 5,000 non-complaint companies is expected to be published towards the end of March.
“We are hoping that the first batch notices should be enough warning to other non-compliant companies to file their outstanding annual returns to avoid being included in the next batch of companies to be removed.”