Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. A195:"Page 342, line 3, at beginning insert ““Except in relation to material that the court declares is derived either from anything done without the authority of the company or from something that is forged,””" The noble Lord said: We are on to the rectification of a register by court order, which is another ICAEW issue. This amendment to the court order remedy disapplies the additional requirement in Clause 706(3) to demonstrate ““damage to the company”” and an overriding interest in correcting the register in respect of fraudulent filings. Where the court is satisfied that a filing has been made either without the authorisation of the company or on the basis of a forged document, the court should be under obligation to order its removal. There should be no need to demonstrate damage or overriding interest, as it is fundamentally unsound and against the public interest—for the reason that the Minister made in his response to my last amendment; that people rely on those records—to allow forged documents and unauthorised filings to remain on the public record. We also note that the damage caused by fraudulent and unauthorised filings may not be restricted to damage to the company, but could also be damage to any third party—for example, a director, an auditor or other individual or entity named in the documents that had been forged. I beg to move.