Articles
Analysis and insights on UK companies, corporate governance, and business data.
Analysis and insights on UK companies, corporate governance, and business data.
Nineteen years after Part 22 of the Companies Act 2006 commenced, listed-company boards still reach for a section 793 notice — not the PSC register — when shareholder identity actually matters.
By Daniel Mensah
Britain's register shows roughly 8,000 active public limited companies. The LSE Main Market, AIM and Aquis together host fewer than 1,900 UK-incorporated PLCs. The 6,000-strong unlisted tail is the Companies Act's quietest data problem.
By Helen Raines
Eighteen years on, Section 519 still routes UK auditor resignation statements past the Companies House register. ECCTA left the architecture untouched — and the gap quietly limits what the public file can tell you about a failing audit relationship.
By Helen Raines
Seventeen years after the Companies Act 2006 took capital reductions out of the High Court for private companies, the SH19 route now dominates. We compare court approval against the solvency-statement procedure and map the filings driving the register.
By Helen Raines
A quirk of Section 442(3) means shortening an accounting period by a single day buys three months of extra filing time. We unpack the AA01, the Section 392 limits, and what ECCTA's lawful-purpose regime now means for the workaround.
By Helen Raines
The April 2025 large-company threshold uplift moved the payment-practices reporting perimeter with it. After nine years of SI 2017/395, several thousand UK reporters will quietly drop off the register.
By Helen Raines
FRS 105 turns ten in 2026, and the April 2025 threshold uplift has brought around 113,000 more small companies into the micro-entity regime. A decade-on look at take-up, lender resistance and what ECCTA finishes off.
By Helen Raines
Five years after CIGA 2020 inserted Part 26A into the Companies Act, the restructuring plan has displaced the CVA as Britain's flagship cram-down tool — but court scrutiny is hardening, and the appellate map is finally filling in.
By Daniel Mensah
Britain runs two registers for foreign corporate presence: the Register of Overseas Entities, and the older overseas-companies regime under Part 34 of the Companies Act 2006. They are routinely confused — and only one of them has been touched by ECCTA.
By Helen Raines
The 30 October 2024 EOT reforms have run for eighteen months. Trustee independence, a four-year clawback tail and a tighter £3,600 bonus regime have changed what a Companies House exit through an Employee Ownership Trust now looks like.
By Helen Raines
Companies House sees the names on the AP01s, not the people pulling the strings. Two years into ECCTA's identity verification regime, the statutory gap around shadow and de facto directors is wider, not narrower.
By Daniel Mensah
The old rule of thumb said use DS01 below £25,000 of reserves and an MVL above it. Two BADR rate rises later, the crossover has moved — and the 6 April 2026 deadline will quietly cost procrastinators four percentage points.
By Helen Raines
Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 turns forty in 2026. ECCTA reshaped the surrounding architecture, but Britain's criminal anti-phoenixing rule itself is almost untouched — and the data infrastructure to feed it has only just arrived.
By Daniel Mensah
SI 2021/427 made an independent evaluator's report mandatory for connected-party pre-pack sales from 30 April 2021. The Regulations' first statutory review is now due. What the data, and the Pre-Pack Pool's near-disappearance, reveal about the regime.
By Helen Raines
When a UK company is dissolved, every asset it still holds passes automatically to the Crown. We map the four bodies that share that inheritance, what they actually receive, and why ECCTA quietly shrinks the pipe.
By Helen Raines
Two years after ECCTA rewired Part 5 of the Companies Act 2006, Companies House can now direct a name change after incorporation. We unpack the four ECCTA grounds, the Adjudicator's parallel docket, and what the registrar has yet to disclose.
By Helen Raines
Twelve years after section 479A took effect, a one-page parent guarantee on form AA06 still lets large UK subsidiaries skip their statutory audit. Here is how the regime works in 2026, what Brexit narrowed, and why the FRC keeps returning to it.
By Helen Raines
ECCTA hands Companies House the power to retire its free WebFiling portal for accounts and force filings through approved software. Here is what that quietly does to the four million companies on the register.
By Helen Raines
The 1 September 2022 deadline ended a five-year scramble at HMRC's Trust Registration Service. Three years on, TRS sits beside the PSC register as Britain's second beneficial-ownership regime — with different triggers, different access rules and a widening data gap.
By Helen Raines
Two years on from 4 March 2024, the appropriate address rule has moved more than 11,000 registered offices to default Companies House addresses. We review what the ECCTA reform actually changed — and what it left untouched.
By Helen Raines
The London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes still anchor UK statutory corporate notice in 2026. What the regime does, what ECCTA changed, and why the Gazette feed has quietly eclipsed paid commercial insolvency data.
By Helen Raines
April 2013 abolished Form 395 and rewrote the rules on registering company charges. Thirteen years on, the MR01 regime is the quietest reform of the Companies Act 2006 — and arguably the most successful.
By Helen Raines
Five accounting cycles after the section 172(1) statement became compulsory for large UK companies, the disclosure has stabilised — but the share that genuinely illuminates boardroom decisions remains stubbornly small. A Companies Record review.
By Daniel Mensah
Fourteen months after Companies House began authorising third-party filing agents, the supervisor split — HMRC, FCA and twenty-two professional bodies — is doing more of the integrity work on the UK register than most filers realise.
By Helen Raines