Companies Failing to Comply with the PSC Register Requirements can be Prosecuted for a Criminal Offence by the Companies House

Companies and individuals that have failed to publish details of people with significant control (PSC) are now being sent remainders by the Companies house to publish details regarding their ownership through their PSC register. This is last chance for all those companies and individuals that are yet to comply with the PSC requirements otherwise the details of all those companies will be passed onto the Insolvency Service’s criminal enforcement team

Initially the Companies House has adopted the approach of contacting all those companies and individuals that are yet to show compliance with the PSC requirements in an attempt to ensure that they do comply with the PSC regulations and that too as early as possible.

In the next phase more strict action will be taken against the companies and individuals that fail in complying with the PSC requirements even after receiving remainder from the Companies House as it is a criminal offence to not comply with the new PSC regulations.

A person with significant control can be defined as someone who either owns a company or has significant control over it. In most cases, a person with significant control is likely to be someone who has more than 25% shareholding in the company, more than 25% of voting rights and have the right to appoint new directors to the board as well as to remove the existing directors from the board.

The PSC register regulations were introduced in April 2016. The regulations require all limited liability partnerships (LLPs) as well as certain Scottish partnerships, UK companies (including charitable companies as well as associate or subsidiaries of exempted companies) to keep and maintain a PSC register. The new regulations also require a disclosure requirement with regards to persons that control companies or other relevant entities.

Companies House has confirmed that around 98.5% of the registered companies in the UK have displayed compliance with the new PSC regulations but still there are around 50,000 companies that are yet to comply with the PSC requirements.