Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 111:"Leave out Clause 218 and insert the following new Clause—" ““PROTECTED INFORMATION (1)   This Chapter makes provision for protecting, in the case of a company director who is an individual— (a)   information as to his usual residential address; (b)   the information that his service address is his usual residential address. (2)   That information is referred to in this Chapter as ““protected information””.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the government amendments in this group are based on the helpful suggestions of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. In short, they provide for an ““opt-out”” scheme of protection where the scheme in the first print of the Bill was ““opt-in””. Where, under the old clauses, directors would have to apply for a confidentiality certificate to have their home addresses kept off the public record, the new drafting means that all directors will have to make a conscious decision if they want to use their home addresses as their public service addresses. This cuts out the application process and provides a better way of affording protection to people who are not normally troubled by animal rights extremists or other protesters using similar tactics, but may find that a particular contract puts them at risk. This seems a better way of tackling the same problem that was addressed by the earlier clauses. I note noble Lords’ concerns about the addresses of former directors and about historical material on the register. We intend to address those concerns in Part 26, which relates to the registrar of companies. Our amendment will provide a power to make regulations specifying circumstances in which a director’s or, indeed, anyone’s, address may be removed from the public record. In the light of this, I hope that noble Lords will not press Amendments Nos. 112, 113, 114 and 117. Home addresses are personal data within the Data Protection Act 1998. As such, when they are disclosed without the consent of the data controller—in this context, the registrar of companies or the relevant company—an offence is committed. This is provided for in Section 55 of the 1998 Act. There are also various sanctions for data controllers who breach the data protection principles in the 1998 Act. Thus, those who disclose directors’ addresses unlawfully will be in a similar position to those who disclose other people’s addresses unlawfully, such as the addresses of the ordinary employees of a sensitive company or its customers and suppliers. Surely that is correct. There is no justification for a separate sanctions structure such as that envisaged by Amendments Nos. 119 and 120. To the extent that home addresses are kept off the public record under the provisions being introduced by the Bill, the main exemption in the 1998 Act, which applies in respect of records kept under the Companies Act 1985, will cease to apply. Consequently, the range of sanctions under the 1998 Act will be available. They include a criminal offence in the case of unauthorised disclosure, and enforcement notices, which are somewhat similar to the orders envisaged by Amendment No. 96. Failing to comply with an enforcement notice is also a criminal offence. Once again, I do not think that we should provide directors with protection in addition to that which the law provides for others, including, for example, the employees of sensitive companies. I hope that, in view of my comments, noble Lords will withdraw their amendments in this group. I beg to move.