{"id":4305,"date":"2024-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/companies-house-flexes-new-legislative-muscles\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T00:00:00","slug":"companies-house-flexes-new-legislative-muscles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/companies-house-flexes-new-legislative-muscles\/","title":{"rendered":"Companies House flexes new legislative muscles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest of new legislative changes that have granted Companies House new powers, the Registrar has turned it&rsquo;s attention to the registration of company names. Here&rsquo;s what they have announced on this topic:<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re running stronger checks on company names which may give a false or misleading impression to the public.<\/p>\n<p>This will help us improve the accuracy and quality of the data we hold and help tackle the misuse of company names.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The new powers explained<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Companies House can now reject an application to register a name where they have reason to believe:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the name is intended to facilitate fraud;<\/li>\n<li>the name is comprised of or contains a computer code; or<\/li>\n<li>the name is likely to give the false impression the company is connected to a foreign government or an international organisation whose members include two or more countries or territories (or their governments).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They can also direct companies to change their name. If a company fails to change its name within 28 days, Companies House can determine a new name for the company, for example, changing the company name to its registered company number.<\/p>\n<p>They can also suppress a name from the register while a company responds to a direction to change its name<\/p>\n<p><strong>The new powers have teeth<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If a company does not respond to a direction to change their company name within 28 days, an offence is committed.<\/p>\n<p>It is also an offence to continue using a company name that Companies House have directed to change<\/p>\n<p>The Company Names Tribunal continues to be responsible for considering objections to the use of a name which is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the same as an existing name in which another person has goodwill; or<\/li>\n<li>sufficiently similar to that name that it is likely to mislead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you receive a directive to change your company name<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If by chance you receive correspondence from Companies House regarding your company name do not ignore the correspondence.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Let us know and we will help you reach an amicable solution with the registrar.<\/p>\n<p>Don&rsquo;t forget, if your name is changed, you may need to change a range of data, including:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your company email addresses and URL<\/li>\n<li>Bank Account names<\/li>\n<li>Data protection registration<\/li>\n<li>VAT registration<\/li>\n<li>HMRC registration details<\/li>\n<li>Payroll details<\/li>\n<li>Contracts of employment<\/li>\n<li>Your website<\/li>\n<li>Stationery<\/li>\n<li>Contracts<\/li>\n<li>Advertising campaigns<\/li>\n<li>Social media accounts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<!-- -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest of new legislative changes that have granted Companies House new powers, the Registrar has turned it&rsquo;s attention to the registration of company names. Here&rsquo;s what they have announced on this topic: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re running stronger checks on company names which may give a false or misleading impression to the public. This will help [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebblethwaites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}