Be aware of immediate new measures and those which will be effective in secondary legislation.
The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill received royal assent and is now an Act.
Some of the measures in the Act will come into effect immediately and other measures will come into effect once the secondary legislation comes into force.
The Act:
- introduces temporary easements on Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and filing requirements for public limited companies (PLCs)
- introduces new corporate restructuring tools to the insolvency regime to give companies the time they need to maximise their chance of survival
- temporarily suspends parts of insolvency law to support directors during this difficult time.
Under the secondary legislation which came into force on Saturday 27 June 2020 – The Companies etc. (Filing Requirements) (Temporary Modifications) Regulations 2020 2020 No. 645 – companies will receive an automatic extension for:
- confirmation statements
- registrations of charges (mortgage)
- event-driven filings, such as a change to your company’s directors or people with significant control
- for most companies and LLPs time to file accounts.
Examples of the deadlines for filing extensions are:
- the accounts filing deadline will be extended by three months, to 12 months for private companies and LLPs and nine months for public companies
- the 14 day deadline for the annual confirmation statement after the end of the company’s year-long confirmation period will be extended to 42 days
- the 14 day deadlines for submitting notices of relevant events after they occur are extended to 42 days. This includes a change of director or person of significant control
- the 21 day deadline for registering a charge against a company’s assets is extended by ten days to 31 days.
All deadlines will be updated automatically and will not need to be applied for.
However, this is a temporary measure and the deadline will not be extended next year if it falls on or after 6 April 2021.
View a summary of measures in the Act
Article from ACCA In Practice
