Register a Public Company & Trading Disclosures Requirements

Registration of a public company & trading disclosures requirements: the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 (SI 2008/495) made under s.82 of the CA 2006 set out the requirements for a company to identify itself, at certain locations (including any place of business), on certain documents (including letters and order forms) and on its websites. The public company must state its registered name and certain other registration details depending on the circumstances.

Breach of these requirements can result in a fine for the company and any officer of the public company who is in default. The company must update its websites and order new signs and company documentation, which will reflect its new identity, in advance of re-registration to ensure that it can meet these requirements with effect from the date of certificate of incorporation on re-registration is issued.

Setting-up a public company & corporate governance: corporate governance refers to how a company is run. This includes not only how a company is directed and controlled, but also how a company is performing, how that performance can be enhanced, and how a company should account to interested parties such as shareholders and employees.

Corporate governance is relevant to all companies, but once a public company is listed, those who control the company (directors and controlling shareholders) are not the same as, and therefore may have conflicting interests to, who own the company (shareholders). This means that corporate governance is a particularly important issue for listed companies.

Corporate governance is also once again very much in the news. It has jumped to the top of politicians' and regulators' agendas worldwide as a result of the global financial crisis which has triggered the deepest recession in over 70 years.

Listed companies stood at the heart of the crisis. And post mortems are being conducted into the poor corporate governance of banks and other financial companies, some of the largest of which are now only functioning thanks to the governmental intervention. Although financial service companies are the main focus of many of the recent changes to corporate governance rules, is it worth nothing that in the UK the rules have been amended for listed companies beyond the financial service industry.