On 14 August 2023, the Minister of Trade Industry and Competition issued a notice of intention to introduce the Companies First Amendment Bill 2023 and the Companies Second Amendment Bill 2023 in Parliament.

The First Companies Amendment Bill seeks to address some issues relating to inter alia the improvement of doing business to boost the domestic economy, increase transparency surrounding senior executive management remuneration and disclosure of beneficial ownership to battle corruption and money laundering.

The Second Companies Amendment Bill seeks to extend the time bar within which a S162(2) application can be made to declare a person delinquent or under probation from within 24 months to five (5) years.

The Bill further gives the Courts a discretion to extend the timeline further for both S162(2) delinquency or probation applications as well as in respect to S77(7) applications which relate to instituting proceedings to recover losses from a director or prescribed officer (which is currently 3 years).

The 2023 Amendment Bill is currently not yet available from the DTIC. Once this is published we will share this with our Members.

Access the Companies Amendment Bill Notice here

From the KnM Corporate Governance Team.