Ұлыбритания компаниялар тізілімі

United Kingdom's registrar of companies

Companies House is the executive agency of the British Government that maintains the register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for incorporating all forms of companies in the United Kingdom. Prior to 1844, no central company register existed and companies could only be incorporated through letters patent and legislation. At the time, few incorporated companies existed; between 1801 and 1844, only about 100 companies were incorporated. The Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 created a centralised register of companies, enabled companies to be incorporated by registration, and established the office of the registrar; the Joint Stock Companies Act 1856 mandated separate registrars for each of the three UK jurisdictions. Initially just a brand, Companies House became an official executive agency in 1988. All public limited, private limited, private unlimited, chartered and some other companies are incorporated and registered with Companies House. The agency also registers limited partnerships, while most other enterprises fall under the purview of the Financial Conduct Authority. All limited companies (including subsidiary, small and inactive) must file annual financial statements with Companies House, all of which are public records. The agency is also responsible for dissolving companies. From 2016, Companies House operated under the authority of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This then became the Department for Business and Trade from 7 February 2023 following a Machinery of Government change initiated by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The current chief executive is Louise Smyth, who also serves as registrar for England and Wales. The agency, as well as British company law in general, are governed by the Companies Act 2006. as of 2023, Companies House maintains 5.32 million active companies.

Prior to 1844, companies could only be incorporated through grant of a royal charter, by private act of Parliament, or, from 1834, by letters patent. Few companies were incorporated, with only approximately 100 companies being incorporated by private act between 1801 and 1844. At this time, no central register of companies was in existence.

In 1982 the post of Q&LTR was transferred to the Crown Agent, and the staff and functions relating to company registration in Scotland were transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry on 1 April 1981. In October 1988, Companies House became an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, and then in October 1991 started to operate as a trading fund, self financing by retaining income from charges.

In view of the coronavirus pandemic, from 25 March 2020 companies were able to apply for a three month extension to the annual deadline for filing their accounts and reports. There were also temporary extensions to the deadlines for filing confirmation statements and certain event driven filings.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, receiving royal assent on 26 October 2023 and coming into force on 4 March 2024, signifies a major legislative reform for Companies House. The Act aims to transform Companies House from a mere repository of documents into an entity that proactively supervises company registration procedures and plays a role in preventing economic crimes. Central to the act is the requirement for identity verification of individuals wishing to incorporate a company, including directors, people with significant control (PSCs), and members of Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs). This measure is set to apply to all new and existing directors and PSCs.

The role of Registrar of Companies is not a political one, and the incumbent is a civil servant.

The Registrar of Companies for England and Wales is based at Companies House, Cardiff, and is responsible for the registration of companies in England and Wales. Until 2011 there was another Companies House office in Nantgarw, Wales. The London office of Companies House, located at Petty France, is purely a facility to file and view documents, which are then processed in Cardiff. The current registrar is Louise Smyth, who also serves as chief executive of Companies House.

The Register of Companies is the index of every undertaking registered with Companies House.

Every undertaking registered with Companies House must have a unique name. Whether a name is unique or not is determined by Companies House; certain terms and punctuation, and characters after the first 60, are completely disregarded when assessing the uniqueness of a name, and other characters, although strictly different, are deemed to be the same as each other.

Companies may not have names which if used would constitute a criminal offence, or which are offensive. Approval from the Secretary of State is required if a company wishes to use a name indicating a connection to government, or other so called 'sensitive' words or phrases.

Companies House does not verify the accuracy of information filed. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced in 2020 that Companies House would be given powers to verify the identities of company directors, but did not set a timetable for their introduction.

In February 2008, The Times and Computer Weekly broke a story that almost 4,000 of the names on the Companies House register of directors were on international watchlists of alleged fraudsters, money launderers, terror financiers and corrupt officials. The results came from Datanomic who had screened the 6.8 million names on the register against a World Check database of high risk individuals and businesses. The exercise also revealed more than 1,500 disqualified company directors were being allowed to run other UK companies as Companies House was not checking names against its register of disqualified persons. In July 2023, the Companies House independent adjudicators' report 2022 2023 was published. This revealed that Companies House had given false information to an MP to try to make themselves look better. "A letter to the complainant’s Member of Parliament was riddled with wrong information, which showed Companies House in a better light."