111.This section replaces section 18 of the 1985 Act and Schedule 24 to that Act.
112.The provisions of a company’s constitution may be altered by legislation, rather than by a resolution or agreement of the company’s members. Such legislation will either be of general relevance to all companies (for example, a new Companies Act provision that provisions of a certain type in any company’s articles are void), or to all companies of a particular type (for example, new commonhold legislation changing the provisions prescribed for inclusion in the articles of all commonhold associations) or it will be relevant only to a particular company (for example, a private Act of Parliament amending the articles of a specific company established by an earlier Act).
113.In keeping with the principles underlying section 26, it is important that those searching the register of companies should be able to be made aware of the changes to companies’ articles which legislation may effect. However, there is a balance to be struck between maintaining transparency on the one hand and inundating the registrar and searchers with mountains of paper which will be of little practical use to persons searching the public register (and whose contents are generally available in any event). The section therefore does not require companies to send copies of most public general Acts which alter their articles (such as Companies Acts or new commonhold legislation) to the registrar. It does however require “special enactments” (as defined in subsection (4)) to be sent to the registrar by companies whose articles are altered by the enactment in question.
114.Where an enactment to which this section applies alters a company’s articles, or where such an enactment alters a resolution or agreement affecting the company’s constitution, the company is obliged to send a copy of the articles, or the resolution or agreement in question, as altered, to the registrar.
115.The procedural rules for sending such legislation to the registrar, and the penalties for non-compliance with them, are as for section 26.