THE COMPANIES ACT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9039, 4 March 1908, Page 7

THE COMPANIES ACT.

Secretaries called to * order. FAILURE TO FORWARD RETURNS.

The Registrar of Companies had a field-day at the Wellington Magistrate's Court, before Mr W. G. Riddell, S.M., on Monday, when no fewer than nine limited liability companies were called upon to explain their remissness in forwatding returns to the Department as required by the Companies Act, 1903. The first charge heard was against the Mauriieville Hall Co., Ltd. (Mr Herdman), for failing to forward to the Registrar of Companies its annual list of members and summary for the year §907. Mr Myers, who prosecuted on behalf of the Registrar of Companies, stated that the informations were laid under Section 101 of the Companies Act, 1908. The section provided that every company having a capital divided into shares should make a list of all members of the company on the fourteenth day after the ordinary general meeting, or the first ordinary general meeting, if there are more than one in the year, j with' certain particulars, set out in the Act, regarding these members, the capital, number of shares, and the general financial position of the company. It was further provided that this list should be sent to the Registrar within seven days after the fourteenth day mentioned. Any company failing to comply with this ; provision was liable to a fine not ex- ; ceeding £5 for every day during | which the default continued, as was ! also every director and manager of a company who knowingly permitted j or authorised such default. Continu- j ing, counsel pointed out that the present case was not the first laid under Section 101. Last year and the year before the Department caused a number of informations to be laid, and on those occasions asked for only nominal penalties, simply to show that the provisions of the Act were not going to be allowed to re- i main a dead letter. It was stated J when the cases came before the Court that the informations were laid as a warning generally. The present case was one of a number in which companies had ignored the warning jiotices sent out by the Department. -fAs far as the case under notice, and the other cases to be brought forward, were concerned, counsel suggested that something more salutary than a nominal penalty was needed as a warning. Mr Herdman explained that the company concerned was a country company, and its officers, it could be taken, were not as well up in the matter of forwarding returns as the officers of companies carrying on business in the city. The company had only been carrying on business for three months before the present proceedings commenced. The secretary of the company was not familiar with the requirements of th< 3 Act, and his mistake had been made under a misapprehension. His Worship held that secretaries of companies should make themselves acquainted with the duties required of -them, so as to carry out the requirements of the Act. Defendant would be convicted and fined 20s and costs £1 ISs GelEight of the nine companies cited were represented before thd Court, and all pleaded guilty. Five, including the* one already mentioned, were fined 20s, and costs £1 ISs Gd, and the three others, whose excuses were not so convincing, were fined 40s, and rosts £1 18s Gd. The ninth, which was unrepresented, was fined £3, and costs £1 18s 6d.