From 6 April 2016, every company (and any other legal entity) that is subject to new Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006 will be required to produce, keep and maintain a dedicated register of people with significant control over that company or entity (a PSC register). The breadth of the legislation is designed to ensure that every method of holding significant control over a company is potentially registrable.
Companies within scope must take reasonable steps to identify those individuals and relevant legal entities that hold significant control by reference to five separate measures. However, a company will only be required to include such a person in its PSC register if that person is also registrable.
While the legislation places the obligations on the company required to keep a PSC register, failure to meet an obligation may constitute an offence by the company and every officer in default.
Practical Law Corporate has published the following materials on the PSC regime to assist companies (subscription only):
- Practice note, PSC register: identifying people with significant control, which helps a company identify whether it is required to keep a PSC register and who to include on such register.
- Practice note, PSC register: completing the register, which considers the steps a company should follow to create its PSC register and keep that information up to date.
- Checklist, PSC register: who must keep a PSC register: flowchart, which identifies which entities are required to keep a PSC register.
- Checklist, PSC register: identifying people with significant control: flowchart, which identifies those individuals and legal entities a company must register as holding significant control.
- Practice note, PSC register: official wording for a PSC register, which sets out the official wording to include in a PSC register held by a company or limited liability partnership.
- Practice note, PSC register: statutory notices under Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006, which sets out links to template notices required by the PSC regime pursuant to obligations under Part 21A and Schedule 1B to the Companies Act 2006.
This article was written by Sarah Hassan, Editor of Practical Law Corporate. For more information please contact Sarah Hassan.
