Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved, as a substitution for Amendment No. A204BB, Amendment No. A204BC:"Page 464, line 9, at end insert—" ““(2)   Such agreement may be valid for a maximum of twelve months.”” The noble Lord said: Amendment No. A204BC concerns Schedule 6. I apologise to the Minister and to the Bill team that our original drafting said ““minimum”” when we meant to say ““maximum””. Paragraph 9 in Part 4 of Schedule 6 deals with the agreement of a member to accept information via a website. As the Minister has pointed out today, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, made clear during our debates on Part 9, this provision could save companies a vast amount of money. However, there is also the potential for problems caused by the failure of an individual member to understand properly what he or she is being asked to accept, and then being deemed to have agreed under paragraph 10. Our amendment aims to cap any such agreement, deemed or actual, to a maximum of 12 months. After that period, the company would have to seek another agreement. Given the savings that the company is making in not having to send out substantial amounts of information in hard copy, I suggest that it is not unreasonable for them to have to send one letter a year to each shareholder to enable the company to continue to benefit from these savings. Members who have unwittingly signed up to receiving information will be given an opportunity to rescind their agreement, while those who wish to continue can indicate to do so. Those who are interested will, as usual, ignore the notice and thus be deemed to have agreed. This will provide a protection to those members who do not have easy access to the internet or to email and a reminder that the website arrangement is in place. But we make it clear that our objective is that the default system will be to have deemed to have accepted. I beg to move.