Company Law Re-Yawn Bill

A rant, not a rave:

The purpose of the Company Law Reform is to consolidate the company law statutes i.e. one statute to rule them all. However, it has recently been stated by Margaret Hodge, the Industry Minister, that there will be a provisional timetable as to the implementation of the Companies Bill. Accordingly, if the Bill gains royal assent in November 2006 it may still not come into full effect until October 2008!

           Clearly by October 2008 there will be a whole new set of concerns affecting the business community and the Company Law Refom Bill will need reforming again. Perhaps Margaret Hodge feels that such further reforms can be the late nights and long hours of the next government?
           Whilst it is well known that fast law is bad law, it is also common knowledge that the law is one step behind the business community, which is one step behind the innovators who exploit the loopholes in the old law. So at one end the law drags its feet (the CLR is eight years in gestation), and at the other end it is a round brick shoved through a square window to meet impending EU deadlines.

           Corporate Blawg once met Sir Jeremy Lever QC and asked him whether the UK was a bridge between the US and the EU. Sir Jeremy said that it was bridge that went down at both ends. The same must be true of the Company Law Reform Bill, which is only vaguelly useful to young lawyers trying to impress their future employers in the hope of a level playing field, or to aging parliamentary academics who wish to pontificate on the (insignificant) role of third world considerations in the governance of UK companies.
           This is the biggest bill to ever go through parliament and, despite the enormous potential to clarify and update UK Company law, there is much yet to be consulted on. As the powers of the statute trickle into force, numerous statutory instruments will be needed to patch up the corners of this round brick, and once the judges get their teeth into it the power of the one statute to rule all company law will be lost forever.
           As MPs sycophantically congratulate each other for their work to date, Corporate Blawg wonders whether the UK should simply hand over control to the EU which, for the first time known to Corporate Blawg, appears to be enforcing progressive company law much faster and more efficiently than the UK.

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[Alden Cooper]

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