30 years after, Companies and Allied Matters Bill amended, signed by Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday assented to the Companies and Allied Matters Bill, 2020 recently passed by the National Assembly to enhance the ease of doing business in the country.

The Act repealed the extant Companies and Allied Matters Act of 1990, introduced after 30 years with several corporate legal innovations introduced.

The innovations include filing fee reductions and other reforms to make it easier and cheaper for small and medium-sized enterprises to register and reform their businesses in Nigeria.

This is contained in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, and copied to Persecondnews.

The statement said the Act also allows corporate promoters of companies to establish private companies with a single member or shareholder, and creating limited liability partnerships and limited partnerships to give investors and business people alternative forms of carrying out their business in an efficient and flexible way.

In addition, the Act provides innovating processes and procedures to ease the operations of companies such as introducing Statements of Compliance; replacing “authorised share capital” with minimum share capital to reduce costs of incorporating companies; and providing for electronic filing, electronic share transfers, e-meetings as well as remote general meetings for private companies in response to the disruptions to close contact physical meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It requires the disclosure of persons with significant control of companies in a register of beneficial owners to enhance corporate accountability and transparency and enhance the minority shareholder protection and engagement.

It also introduced enhanced business rescue reforms for insolvent companies; and permitting the merger of Incorporated Trustees for associations that share similar aims and objectives.