1. These Regulations may be cited as the Companies (Inspection and Copying of Registers, Indices and Documents) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 and shall come into operation on 29th March 1993.
2. In these Regulations:—
“business day” means, in relation to a company subject to any provision of these Regulations, any day except a Saturday or Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday and any other day which is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland;
“company” includes a body corporate to which Article 672A of the Order is applied by any statutory provision(1), and
“the Order” means the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986.
3.—(1) This regulation applies to an obligation to make a register, index or document available for inspection imposed on a company by Articles 179(5) (contract for purchase by company of its own shares), 185(5) (statutory declaration and auditors' report relating to payment out of capital), 200(1) (register of debenture holders), 227(1) (register of interests in shares, &c.), 296(3) (register of directors and secretaries), 326(7) (directors' service contracts), 364(1) (register and index of members' names) and 391(1) (minute books) of the Order, as well as by Article 333 of, and paragraph 24 of Part IV of Schedule 13 to, the Order (register of directors' interests).
(2) The company shall:
(a)make the register, index or document available for such inspection for not less than 2 hours during the period between 9.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. on each business day, and
(b)permit a person inspecting the register, index or document to copy any information made available for inspection by means of the taking of notes or the transcription of the information.
(3) Paragraph 2(b) shall not be construed as obliging a company to provide any facilities additional to those provided for the purposes of facilitating inspection.
4.—(1) This regulation applies to a company’s register of members maintained under Article 360 of the Order, to an index of the names of the company’s members maintained under Article 362 thereof and to a register of debenture holders maintained under Article 199 thereof.
(2) A company is not obliged:
(a)by virtue of Article 364(1) of the Order to present for inspection its register of members or an index of members' names; or
(b)by virtue of Article 200(1) of the Order to present for inspection a register of debenture holders maintained by it,
in a manner which groups together entries by reference to whether a member or (as the case may be) a debenture holder has given an address in a particular geographical location, is of a particular nationality, has a holding of a certain size, is a natural person or not or is of a particular gender.
(3) Nor is a company obliged:
(a)by virtue of Article 364(3) of the Order, in providing a copy of a part of its register of members; or
(b)by virtue of Article 200(2) of the Order, in providing a copy of apart of a register of debenture holders;
to extract entries from the register by reference to whether a member or (as the case may be) a debenture holder has given an address in a particular geographical location, is of a particular nationality, has a holding of a certain size, is a natural person or not or is of a particular gender.
5. Schedule 2 prescribes the fees payable for the purposes of the provisions of the Order listed therein.
Sealed with the Official Seal of the Department of Economic Development on 18th February 1993.
L.S.
A. L. Brown
Assistant Secretary