Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for the trouble that he and the Minister have taken with the officials to take in the views on this complex and quite controversial issue. From these Benches, we welcome the changes that he has just outlined—the introduction of a prima facie case at two levels, and the ability to call upon the views of disinterested shareholders, which must be taken into account by the court in deciding whether to allow the proceedings to continue. We think that that is extremely helpful. We were chasing the prima facie case in our Amendment No. 250B in Grand Committee on 27 February 2006, when we asked that the civil procedure rules should proceed further only if the court is satisfied that a prima faciecase is made out of a cause of action under Section 239(3). We are pleased to see that that is included now. The noble and learned Lord was slightly disobliging on that occasion—elegantly disobliging, as always—when he said,"““if one included an express test, that would increase the risk of a detailed investigation into the merits of the case taking place at the stage of leave or permission, and that such a mini-trial could be time-consuming and expensive””.—[Official Report, 27/2/06; col. GC22.]" We are delighted that he has found a way to reconcile that and to work his way through. As I explained, this is a technical area. Inevitably, because of the tortuous nature of the negotiations the noble and learned Lord has been undertaking, the amendments were tabled quite late. We have therefore tabled a subsequent amendment, which we wish to explore further, to give us an opportunity to talk to interested parties to try to pull this thing together and put a pink ribbon around it, if possible. I would not want the Minister to think that, in moving Amendment No. 136, we are not grateful for what the government amendment represents: it is a very important and useful step forward. We are grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General and his colleagues for tabling their amendments.