Pearse Trust Blog

This blog provides an overview of the various numbers that are relevant to UK companies.

Company Registration Number

The Company Registration Number (“CRN”) is issued to a company’s registered office upon the successful registration of a company. 

This includes the following most commonly used entities:

• Public limited company (“PLC”);
• Private company limited by shares (“Ltd, Limited”);
• Private company limited by guarantee;
• Private unlimited company (either with or without a share capital)*;
• Limited liability partnership (“LLP”)*; and
• Limited partnership (“LP”)*.

An OECD white listed jurisdiction, Ras al Khaimah (‘RAK’) is the fourth largest of the seven emirates forming the United Arab Emirates (‘UAE’).

RAK launched an offshore facility regulated by the RAK Free Trade Zone (‘RAKFTZ’) Authority International Company Regulations in 2006, which allows for international business to be conducted free of local taxes and regulations. This particular model was based on the international business company regime model followed by the British Virgin Islands.

In our previous blog, on the EU 4th Money Laundering Directive it was noted that the European Commission had adopted proposals in the fight against money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing.

One of these proposals was a Directive on the prevention and use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering and terrorist financing – the 4^th AML Directive.

In what appears to be the first challenge to the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”), lawyers for Gwen Deegan of Toronto and Virginia Hillis of Windsor, Ontario say that FATCA exposes their clients 'to a deprivation of their liberty and security of the persons', in violation of Canadian Constitutional rights. FATCA applies to all “US persons”, which in itself is an expansive test and captures many groups of people that may not even realise they are “US persons".

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (the “OECD”) has introduced new country-by-country reporting recommendations which provide for multinationals to disclose a breakdown of all countries in which their profits are made, where their taxes are paid and whether they are shifted elsewhere.

In our previous blog ‘Creditors and their Powers: An Introduction’, we established some of the facts about creditors and looked at their involvement in High Court Liquidations, Creditors Voluntary Liquidation and also their powers to appoint receivers or examiners. This blog will examine further situations where creditors can exercise their powers in respect of debts owed to them.

Creditors’ Powers To Seek Court Judgments & Where Default Exists

Creditors have the power to seek a Court Judgment against a company if they fail to pay a debt owing to the creditor. This judgment may be enforced by registration in the High Court or collection by the Sheriff.

A creditor is a person or company to whom money is owing, creditors can be divided into two types; secured creditors and unsecured creditors.

Secured creditors have their debt secured against the borrower’s assets. The security provided with a registered charge could be over property, a ship, piece of machinery, shares, intellectual property such as copyrights, patents, trade marks and other such assets.

Many security documents have clauses reserving the right for the secured creditor to appoint a receiver in the event of the debt remaining unpaid. The receiver will sell the secured asset in an attempt to recover the creditor’s debt.

The procedures and methods of administering estates can differ significantly across jurisdictions. A person’s estate may often include investments or property abroad. When it comes to the stage of administering the estate, cross border issues may arise in determining which succession law applies to that property. In this case private international law (“PIL”) rules apply.

These are also commonly known as “conflict of law” rules. These rules and procedures are often complex and ambiguous, and other jurisdictions may not always recognise or accept them. The EU Regulation on Succession Law (No 650/2012), also known as “Brussels IV” seeks to remedy many issues surrounding the application of EU member states applying their own PIL/conflict of law rules for succession purposes. 

Further to our previous blog on FATCA wherein we observed the postponement of the implementation dates for FATCA, the regime has now been implemented since July 2014.

Jurisdictions across the world are producing local legislation and guidance in order to implement FATCA on their home soil. 

According to the Companies Act 1993, every company registered at the Companies Office must file an Annual Return with the Registrar each year, except during the calendar year of its incorporation.

Upon incorporation, the Registrar will allocate the company its ‘Annual Return Filing Month’.  The company is then required to deliver an annual return to the Registrar during that allocated filing month i.e. between the first and last day of the month. A company may opt to change its annual return filing month when filing its current annual return.

Failure to file an annual return will result in the Registrar initiating action to remove the company from the Registrar.