Minister Paul Goldsmith, as of today, 6 July 2015, has not answered questions put to him from the Society (emailed to his office on 5 June 2015 and acknowledged as received) relating to the Companies Act 1993. We have been assured today by his office staff that he is very diligently working on a reply which we will be publish on our website, when and if it is received.

COPY OF QUESTIONS RAISED WITH MINISTER

Attention

Hon. Paul Goldsmith

Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs

p.goldsmith@ministers.govt.nz

5 June 2015

Dear Sir,

The Companies Act 1993 states in section 2 (“Interpretation”):

“A reference in this Act to an ADDRESS means (a) in relation to an individual, the full ADDRESS of the place where that person USUALLY LIVES.” [Emphasis added in capitals].

Under the Act all company directors are currently required to disclose their full “residential addresses” [where they reside and can be contacted by the Office] and these are included within the company records in the Annual Reports filed each year, available for public scrutiny on the Companies Office website. If their address changes they have a statutory duty to update their address on the website (able to be done online) by notifying the Registrar within the prescribed time frame. Not to do so is an offence and a number of directors have been prosecuted for such breaches of the Act.

Following the recent amendments to the Act which took effect on 1 May 2015; a time-frame for implementation of changes has been set, such that by 28 October 2015:

“All New Zealand companies will be required to have at least one director that either lives in New Zealand, or lives in Australia and is a director of a company incorporated in Australia.”

Our Society has a number of questions we seek urgent answers to: [Read more…]