Changes afoot at Companies House

Due to new legislation working its way through Parliament, Companies House will be making a number of significant changes. In a recent blog post, they made the following announcement:

We’re approaching a pivotal moment in the history of Companies House. This legislation, The Economic Crime and Transparency Bill, will fundamentally change our role and our purpose and will give us the powers we need to play a more significant role in tackling economic crime. Over time, we’ll become an active gatekeeper of the data on our registers rather than a passive recipient, and we’ll have the tools to go further to prevent the misuse of corporate entities.

It’s widely known that the UK has one of the largest and most open economies in the world. However, it’s become increasingly apparent that this openness exposes the UK to criminals who want to use our corporate structures for illicit purposes. This is one of the things the new Bill will address.

The measures in the Bill will make sure the UK continues to be a great place to do business, while enabling us to take a tougher stance against economic crime.

The measures include:

• introducing identity verification for all new and existing registered company directors, people with significant control, and those who file on behalf of companies;
• broadening the registrar’s powers so that Companies House can become a more active gatekeeper over company creation and a custodian of more reliable data;
• improving the financial information on the register so that the register is more reliable and accurate, reflects the latest advancements in digital technology, and enables better business decisions;
• providing Companies House with more effective investigation and enforcement powers, and introducing better cross-checking of data with other public and private sector bodies; and
• enhancing the protection of personal information provided to Companies House to protect individuals from fraud and other harms.

As more details are published more information will be posted on our newsfeeds.