Section 793: Notice by company requiring information about interests in its shares
1113.This section re-enacts section 212(1) to (4) of the 1985 Act. It allows a public company to issue a notice requiring a person it knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, has an interest in its shares (or to have had an interest in the previous three years) to confirm or deny the fact, and, if the former, to disclose certain information about the interest, including information about any other person with an interest in the shares.
1114.Subsections (3) and (4) enable the company to require details to be given of a person’s past or present interests and to provide details of any other interest subsisting in the shares of which he is aware. This provision allows the company to pursue information through a chain of nominees by requiring each in the chain to disclose the person for whom they are acting. Under subsection (6), where the addressee’s interest is a past one, a company can ask for information concerning any person by whom the interest was acquired immediately subsequent to their interest. Particulars may also be required of any share acquisition agreements, or any agreement or arrangement as to how the rights attaching to those shares should be exercised (sections 824 and 825).
1115.This section serves a different purpose to the automatic disclosure obligations currently contained in sections 198 to 211 of Part 6 of the 1985 Act. It enables companies to discover the identity of those with voting rights (direct or indirect) that fall below the thresholds for automatic disclosure, and it also enables companies (and members of the company) to ascertain the underlying beneficial owners of shares.
1116.The notice is not required to be in hard copy (see the general provisions on sending or supplying documents or information in Part 37 of the Bill). Notices, and responses thereto, may be given in electronic form. A response must be given in a reasonable time. What is reasonable has not been defined so as to allow flexibility according to the circumstances, but if the time given is not reasonable, the company will not have served a valid notice.