The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act was passed on 25 June 2020, with many measures coming into immediate effect on Friday 26 June. It aims to relax the burden on businesses during the coronavirus outbreak, providing additional flexibility and allowing corporate bodies to focus on their operations in these unprecedented circumstances.

We provide more information of this below, with the key focus on the changes to filing deadlines and how they affect UK companies and LLPs.

The Act

The key components include:

• Temporarily suspends elements of insolvency law;
• Adds new corporate restructuring facilities to the existing insolvency regime; and
• Temporarily relaxes a number of requirements related to Annual General Meetings (‘AGMs’)

Secondary legislation gives effect to a number of measures, particularly related to the relaxation of standard filing deadlines for documents that must be submitted to Companies House. These regulations will expire at the end of 5 April 2021.

Companies House filing deadlines

The extension in deadlines is automatic and there is no need to apply for the extensions. Companies House has automatically been updated to reflect these:

• Accounts – ordinarily there are nine months from the end of the relevant accounting period to file their accounts, which has been temporarily extended now to twelve months;
• Confirmation statements – these are normally submitted within 14 days from the end of the confirmation period. This has been temporarily extended to 42 days;
• Event-driven events – including change in registered offices, Single Alternative Inspection Location (‘SAIL’), appointment of new officers, reportable changes to officer details, termination of appointments and changes in People With Significant Control (‘PSC’), have also been temporarily extended to 42 days; and
• Mortgages or charges – the standard deadline of 21 days has been temporarily extended by 10 days to 31 days.

Good new, but…

Some practical considerations:

• Although the Companies House deadlines have been extended, HMRC deadlines have not been extended at this stage. We therefore encourage you to continue to do everything as soon as possible, especially as it is very easy to forget about these things when things are so tough. If you are comfortable with the standard timescales, there will rarely be harm in sticking to them.
• This is an extension of deadlines, not a removal of the requirement to file. It’s important to remember that companies and their directors can still face serious penalties for not filing by the (as amended) deadlines.
• As with any change, there is the potential for confusion. We are already aware, for example, of some emails going out incorrectly from Companies House where their systems are still to be updated. Be careful here, especially with the different extensions on different deadlines.
• They expire at the end of 5 April 2021. Deadlines will not be extended next year if they fall on or after 6 April 2021 (unless there are any further announcements) and this time will quickly pass.

Black and White Accounting

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