Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

The clause concerns the requirements for documents to be provided on re-registration of a public company to a private unlimited company. The requirements include, uncontroversially, the need for a statement of assent to the re-registration on the part of the members of the company. The subsection which would be removed by the amendment includes the important substantive requirement that where the assent is provided in electronic form, it must be authenticated. I believe this is important to provide protection and comfort in the knowledge that the procedures have been properly followed. I would not want to see the provision lost. Is it necessary to specify that authentication must be in such manner as is prescribed by the registrar? The answer is probably not. Clauses in Part 26 arguably provide for this already, but it does no harm to spell it out here.