Buhari signs amended Companies and Allied Matters Bill

President Muhammadu Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari, on Friday, assented to the Companies and Allied Matters Bill, 2020 recently passed by the National Assembly.

A presidential aide, Femi Adesina, in a statement, said President Buhari’s action on the important piece of legislation had repealed and replaced the extant Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990.

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Adesina said the amended law had introduced several corporate legal innovations geared toward enhancing ease of doing business in the country after 30 years.

The innovations, according to the statement, 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.

It also included: “Allowing 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, Adesina said the new law allowed: “Innovating processes and procedures to ease the operations of companies, such as introducing Statements of Compliance; replacing ‘authorized 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;

“Requiring the disclosure of persons with significant control of companies in a register of beneficial owners to enhance corporate accountability and transparency; and

“Enhancing the minority shareholder protection and engagement; introducing enhanced business rescue reforms for insolvent companies; and permitting the merger of Incorporated Trustees for associations that share similar aims and objectives.”