793Notice by company requiring information about interests in its shares
(1)A public company may give notice under this section to any person whom the company knows or has reasonable cause to believe—
(a)to be interested in the company’s shares, or
(b)to have been so interested at any time during the three years immediately preceding the date on which the notice is issued.
(2)The notice may require the person—
(a)to confirm that fact or (as the case may be) to state whether or not it is the case, and
(b)if he holds, or has during that time held, any such interest, to give such further information as may be required in accordance with the following provisions of this section.
(3)The notice may require the person to whom it is addressed to give particulars of his own present or past interest in the company’s shares (held by him at any time during the three year period mentioned in subsection (1)(b)).
(4)The notice may require the person to whom it is addressed, where—
(a)his interest is a present interest and another interest in the shares subsists, or
(b)another interest in the shares subsisted during that three year period at a time when his interest subsisted,
to give, so far as lies within his knowledge, such particulars with respect to that other interest as may be required by the notice.
(5)The particulars referred to in subsections (3) and (4) include—
(a)the identity of persons interested in the shares in question, and
(b)whether persons interested in the same shares are or were parties to—
(i)an agreement to which section 824 applies (certain share acquisition agreements), or
(ii)an agreement or arrangement relating to the exercise of any rights conferred by the holding of the shares.
(6)The notice may require the person to whom it is addressed, where his interest is a past interest, to give (so far as lies within his knowledge) particulars of the identity of the person who held that interest immediately upon his ceasing to hold it.
(7)The information required by the notice must be given within such reasonable time as may be specified in the notice.