Views sought on change to company law
The Government has opened a public consultation on proposed changes to companies legislation on access to the residential addresses of company directors and secretaries.
The proposed amendment follows a report submitted to Niamh Smyth (Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation) by the Company Law Review Group (CLRG).
The report made recommendations on the disclosure of company officers’ residential addresses in the light of company transparency requirements and the GDPR.
"The proposed changes seek to provide an appropriate balance between access to information and individual privacy considerations,” said Minister Smyth.
‘Contact address’
The Government intends to amend the Companies Act 2014 to provide for a company’s relevant officer to provide ‘contact address’, located in the State, in addition to their ‘usual residential address’ already supplied.
The addresses are supplied to enable access by the public and to allow documents to be effectively served on the relevant officer.
The ‘contact address’ will be the only address published on the company’s registers on the Register of Companies maintained by the CRO. The company and CRO will, however, continue to retain a record of the ‘usual residential address’.
Restricted access
Access to the ‘usual residential address’ will be restricted and will be available only on the Register of Companies to relevant entities as prescribed by the minister.
A court, however, may order the disclosure of the ‘usual residential address’ by the company or by the CRO to third parties, where the ‘contact address’ is not effective for service for the purpose of access to justice.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade says the change will be reflected in the drafting of two other bills: the Co-operative Societies Bill and the Registration of Limited Partnership and Business Names Bill.
The consultation is open until 5pm on Friday 19 December.