UK: Section 644, Companies Act (2006): commencement date brought forward

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has announced that Section 644 of the Companies Act (2006) will now come into force on 1 October 2008 and not 1 October 2009 as previously stated. According to BERR:

"Until 2 May 2008 the publicly stated position as regards the commencement of section 644 was that it would commence in October 2009, and that between October 2008 and October 2009 matters relating to the registration of documents at Companies House would be dealt with by amendments to section 138 of the Companies Act 1985, amendments that would have simply enabled suitable changes to be made to existing forms. This approach was agreed to provide sufficient time for Companies House to implement all necessary processes and procedures to ensure the proper operation of the solvency statement route for reducing share capital. Companies House, however, is confident that it can now have in place all necessary processes and procedures to ensure the proper operation of the solvency statement route by October 2008. That being the case there is now no barrier to commencing section 644 of the 2006 Act in October 2008, and that is what we now propose to do".

For further information see here.