Companies Act 1985

255 Publication of abridged accounts

(1) This section applies to the publication by a company of abridged accounts, that is to say any balance sheet or profit and loss account relating to a financial year of the company or purporting to deal with any such financial year, otherwise than as part of full accounts (individual or group) to which section 254 applies.

(2) The reference above to a balance sheet or profit and loss account, in relation to accounts published by a holding company, includes an account in any form purporting to be a balance sheet or profit and loss account for the group consisting of the holding company and its subsidiaries.

(3) If the company publishes abridged accounts, it shall publish with those accounts a statement indicating—

(a) that the accounts are not full accounts,

(b) whether full individual or full group accounts (according as the abridged accounts deal solely with the company's own affairs or with the affairs of the company and any subsidiaries) have been delivered to the registrar of companies or, in the case of an unlimited company exempt under section 241(4) from the requirement to deliver accounts, that the company is so exempt,

(c) whether the company's auditors have made a report under section 236 on the company's accounts for any financial year with which the abridged accounts purport to deal, and

(d) whether any report so made was unqualified (meaning that it was a report, without qualification, to the effect that in the opinion of the person making it the company's accounts had been properly prepared).

(4) Where a company publishes abridged accounts, it shall not publish with those accounts any such report of the auditors as is mentioned in subsection (3)(c).

(5) A company which contravenes any provision of this section, and any officer of it who is in default, is liable to a fine.