The amendments to the British Companies Act 2006 take effect from October 10, 2015. These amendments reduce the period after expiry of which the Companies House can initiate the strike off procedure in relation to a company.
If the Register finds that the company does not conduct business, it sends two notifications sequentially in order to clarify whether the company runs a business and to warn it of the possibility of strike off. At this point, it is still possible to prevent strike off by delivery the required explanations and outstanding documents to the Register within the given timeframe.
If the company does not respond to the second notification within 14 days (until the present – within 1 month), the Register will publish the information about the planned company’s strike off in the Gazette (official public record).
The time period, after expiry of which the company is to be stricken off the Register, has also been reduced – 2 months after publication in the Gazette (earlier this period was 3 months).
Therefore, the total period for strike off procedure initiated by the Register has been reduced from 6 to 4 months.
