Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023

13th February 2024

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act received royal assent (becoming law) in October 2023. The law was created to help crack down on abuse of UK Corporate structures and elements of economic crime. The Act has some changes for the role of the Registrar of companies but also for all new and existing company directors, persons of significant control as well as those that deliver documents to the Registrar of companies.

A result of this legislation is that Companies House will have greater powers to query information, scrutinising for incorrect information and being able to reject information that is in correct or inconsistent.

There will be stronger checks for company names that are misleading to the public.

There will be changes to the requirements for registered information such as office addresses and supplying a registered email address.

There is a requirement on incorporation or annually to confirm that the company is formed for a lawful purpose and that future activities will be lawful.

Other steps are to be taken to “clean up” the register of inaccurate information and allow the inclusion of annotations to allow users to see if information may have potential issues.

Powers and frameworks to strengthen the fight against money laundering and to make sharing information more easy regarding suspected money laundering, fraud and other economic crimes

The act creates stricter rules and requirements on directors and persons of significant control as well as increase the tools available to combat money laundering and other forms of economic crime.

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Article written by Corporate Commercial Solicitor Kyle Smith