Isle of Man: the Company Officers Disqualification Bill 2008

Last year the Isle of Man's Financial Supervision Commission published a consultation paper proposing reforms to the law governing the disqualification of directors. A new Act is proposed which will bring together in one place all of the current grounds for disqualification. It will also introduce "disqualification undertakings" - agreements between the disqualified person and the Commission whereby that person acknowledges their unfit conduct and agrees certain restrictions with regard to the future involvement with companies. Following comments on a draft Bill a revised Company Officers Disqualification Bill 2008 has recently been published. 

For further information about other legislative changes, including amendments to companies law, click here. Information about the legal system on the Isle of Man is available here. Information about company law on the Isle of Man is available here.

Guernsey: New Companies Legislation

New companies legislation is being introduced in Guernsey. The January 2008 Billet D'État (the order paper for Guernsey's Parliament) included the draft text of the new Act, titled the Companies (Guernsey) Law 2008. The Act was published in volumes two and three of the legislation Billet D'État. The Act does not become law until it has received the approval of The Queen in Council. This is likely to take place within the next few months in order that the Act can come into force in July.

Consultation on the new Act began in 2005, when a green paper was published. The new Act updates the Companies (Guernsey) Laws 1994 to 1996 and in content it borrows from other jurisdictions including New Zealand, the Cayman Islands, the UK, Scotland and Jersey. For further information, click here.

Company law reform is proving popular in the Crown dependencies. The Isle of Man introduced a new Companies Act in 2006 (about which see: overview and the Act).

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Postscript: On 7 May, the Companies (Guernsey) Law 2008 was approved by the Queen in Council (see here).

Postscript 2: See this post for a further update (June 2008) and a link to the most recent consolidated version of the legislation.

UK: Bradford and Bingley plc - another case of regulatory failure?

For the second time the Government has made use of powers in the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 to take a bank into public ownership. In a statement published by the FSA it is explained that Bradford and Bingley's UK and Isle of Man retail deposit business, together with its branch network, have been transferred to Abbey National plc. The remainder of Bradford and Bingley's business is now in public ownership.

In an interview with the UK's Channel4 news the FSA's new chairman, Lord Turner, explained that Bradford and Bingley's business model suffered the same weaknesses as that adopted by Northern Rock.  But where was the FSA?  

Note:

Information about the FSA's internal review of its supervision of Northern Rock is available here.