Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003

Holding period: power of participant to direct trustees to accept general offers etc.

37 (1) A participant may direct the trustees to do any of the following during the holding period.

(2) The participant may direct the trustees to accept an offer for any of the participant’s free shares (“the original shares”) if the acceptance or agreement will result in a new holding being equated with the original shares for the purposes of capital gains tax.

(3) The participant may direct the trustees to agree to a transaction affecting the participant’s free shares, or such of them as are of a particular class, if the transaction would be entered into as a result of a compromise, arrangement or scheme applicable to or affecting—

(a) all the ordinary share capital of the company or, as the case may be, all the shares of the class in question, or

(b) all the shares, or all the shares of the class in question, which are held by a class of shareholders identified otherwise than by reference to their employment or their participation in an approved SIP.

(4) The participant may direct the trustees to accept an offer for the participant’s free shares of—

(a) cash, with or without other assets, or

(b) a qualifying corporate bond (whether alone or with other assets or cash or both),

if the offer forms part of a general offer falling within sub-paragraph (5).

(5) A general offer falls within this sub-paragraph if—

(a) it is made to holders of shares of the same class as the participant’s or to holders of shares in the same company, and

(b) it is made in the first instance on a condition such that if it is satisfied the person making the offer will have control of that company.

(6) In sub-paragraph (5) “control” has the meaning given by section 416 of ICTA.