Companies Act 2006 - Electronic communications

Friday, December 08, 2006

Companies Act 2006 and its new provisions encouraging electronic shareholder communications

The latest Companies Act 2006 has now been released following the Companies Bill which recently received Royal Assent.

In summary, earlier legislation permitted shareholders to ‘opt in’ to electronic communications. The latest recommendation, which received Royal Assent on 8th November 2006, is to change the default position to assuming that shareholders want to receive electronic communications. If a shareholder decides that they would like to continue to receive printed copies, they would have to ‘opt out’ to do so.

What is the immediate and longer term impact of this legislation on your printed and online reporting methods? This question, along with many more, will be answered in our White Paper on electronic shareholder communications due to be released early in the New Year. Feel free to order your pre-publication copy. Covering areas such as;

• What exactly does the legislation mean?
• What is the impact on our business?
• What considerations should I take into account?
• What solutions are available to help me?

It will make for a compelling read!

We have been producing Annual Reports for over 40 years and currently works with over 125 public listed companies. In preparation for such legislation, we have spent the past 2 years researching and implementing online investor relations best practice.

We have benchmarked the FTSE 100 companies and held focus groups to understand the needs of small to medium cap companies, and developed a solution to meet the needs of all public-listed companies. Our proven consultancy and project management services can help to fast-track the implementation of a Corporate website or Investor Relations website.

Whilst we believe that the printed Annual Report and online investor relations websites can co-exist, we have developed a variety of solutions to suit the varying needs of our customers.

Keep visiting our website for the latest updates!