Companies Act 2006

The Companies Act 2006 (c 46) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which forms the primary source of UK company law. It had the distinction of being the longest in British Parliamentary history: with 1,300 sections and covering nearly 700 pages, and containing 16 schedules (the list of contents is 59 pages long) but it has since been surpassed, in that respect, by the Corporation Tax Act 2009.

The Act was brought into force in stages, with the final provision being commenced on 1 October 2009. It superseded the Companies Act 1985.

The Act provides a comprehensive code of company law for the United Kingdom, and made changes to almost every facet of the law in relation to companies. The key provisions are:

Companies Act 1985

The Companies Act 1985 (c.6) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, enacted in 1985, which enabled companies to be formed by registration, and set out the responsibilities of companies, their directors and secretaries. It has largely been superseded by the Companies Act 2006.

The Act was a consolidation of various other pieces of company legislation, and was one component of the rules governing companies in England and Wales and in Scotland. A company will also be governed by its own memorandum and articles of association.

Table A, which lays out default articles of association, was not included in the body of the Act, as it had been in all previous Companies Acts. Instead, it was introduced by statutory instrument - the Companies (Tables A to F) Regulations 1985.

The Act applied only to companies incorporated under it, or under earlier Companies Acts. Sole traders, partnerships, limited liability partnerships etc. were not governed by the Act.

Companies Act 2013

Companies Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of India which regulates incorporation of a company, responsibilities of a company, directors, dissolution of a company. The 2013 Act is divided into 29 chapters containing 470 sections as against 658 Sections in the Companies Act, 1956 and has 7 schedules.The Act has replaced The Companies Act, 1956 (in a partial manner) after receiving the assent of the President of India on 29 August 2013. The Act came into force on 12 September 2013 with few changes like earlier private companies maximum number of member was 50 and now it will be 200. A new term of "one person company" is included in this act that will be a private company and with only 98 provisions of the Act notified. On 27 February 2014, the MCA stated that Section 135 of the Act which deals with corporate social responsibility will come into effect from 1 April 2014. On 26 March 2014, the MCA stated that another 183 sections will be notified from 1 April 2014.

The Ministry of Company Affairs thereafter proposed a draft notification for exempting private companies from the ambit of various sections under the companies act.

Companies Act 1928

Companies Act 1928 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which regulated UK company law.

Provisions

It introduced the power of the court to make a disqualification order prohibiting a person from being concerned in the management of a company was introduced by section 75. This was subsequently consolidated as section 275 of the Companies Act 1929 and based on the recommendation of the Report of the Company Law Amendment Committee (1925-1926) under the chairmanship of Mr Wilfrid Greene KC (Cmd 2657). Application for an order was to the court having jurisdiction to wind up the company and could be made by the official receiver or the liquidator or any creditor or contributory of the company. Except where there had been a conviction the power was limited to cases where it appeared in the course of a winding up that any business of the company had been carried on with intent to defraud and the maximum period for which a disqualification order could be made was five years. The power to make such an order was discretionary. The grounds upon which a disqualification order could be made were later extended by section 33 of the Companies Act 1947 (subsequently consolidated as section 188 of the Companies Act 1948) following the Report of the Committee on Company Law Amendment (1945) under the chairmanship of Cohen J (Cmd 6659).