Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, shareholders or debenture holders in unquoted and quoted companies are entitled to request without charge a copy of the company’s latest annual accounts and reports. The amendments would require shareholders or debenture holders to make these requests in writing, whereas Section 239 of the Companies Act 1985 allows them to make the request in any form. I maintain that this unreasonably discriminates against the person wanting to make the request who does not have access to the internet to e-mail the request. Instead of being able to speak to someone on the telephone, the person would be subject to delay in sending and receiving the request by post. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has said that the amendments, which were tabled first in Committee, were suggested by corporate lawyers in the City. I have to say that I am surprised to hear them argue that companies are running a serious risk of non-compliance when they deal with a matter as straightforward as a request on the telephone for a set of the accounts. If they cannot manage this, it is surprising that any mail-order business has ever got off the ground. Companies have been perfectly able to deal with simple telephone requests under existing law. Complaints under the current legislation—Section 239 of the Companies Act 1985—are rare and tend to arise because the company was unaware that it had any obligations to provide a copy of its accounts. Companies House tells us that, in its experience, a company usually complies once it realises that it has this obligation. Indeed, Companies House is unaware of any cases referred for legal action in the past where a company has not complied with a demand. I therefore hope I have succeeded in persuading the noble Baroness that companies should have no major problems in fulfilling their legal obligations to respond within the given timeframe—problems that would warrant introducing this new requirement. I accept that systems must be introduced, but those could be quite low-level to cater for these situations.