Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 277:"Page 208, line 38, leave out ““, (4) and (5)”” and insert ““and (4)””" The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 277, I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group. Again, we have grouped the similar amendments for the FRRP in Part 15 and the Takeover Panel in Part 22. These amendments concern the powers to extend the disclosure of confidential information to overseas bodies. In Clause 445 the Government have taken a power to amend the permitted disclosure categories, which we generally support. Clause 444(5) allows disclosure by the FRRP to non-UK bodies which exercise public functions provided that they carry out similar functions to the FRRP. We have no basic problem with that. But under Clause 445 there is a power to amend Clause 444(5) and the only constraint is that it may not be extended to overseas bodies other than those which exercise functions of a public nature. Amendment Nos. 277 and 278 have the effect of removing this power to amend Clause 444(5). We do not believe that the Minister made the case for this power when we debated it in Grand Committee. Why might it be necessary to extend disclosure permissions to further overseas bodies? What kind of bodies? It seems that the power can extend to overseas non-public bodies which do not carry out functions similar to the FRRP. Can the Minister explain why? Is it necessary that the public functions of an overseas body are similar to public functions here? We know that the definition of the public sector overseas varies from country to country. I raised that in Grand Committee. Countries such as China and Russia set their boundaries of what is or is not public sector in different places. The Minister will see that we are far from convinced of the need for the Government to have this power. Since it involves confidential information leaving the country, we believe that the power raises significant public interest issues. Hence we have also tabled our alternative approach in Amendment No. 279 which requires such an order to be subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure. Amendments Nos. 455, 456 and 457 are the equivalent amendments in relation to the Takeover Panel. I beg to move.