Companies Act 1947

116 Registration of business names.

(1) The power conferred by section fourteen of the Registration of Business Names Act, 1916, on the registrar under that Act to refuse registration of a business name shall (without prejudice to the specific provisions of that section) extend to any name which is in his opinion undesirable.

(2) Where registration of a business name is refused under the said section fourteen, any person carrying on business under that name in such circumstances as to require registration under that Act shall be liable under section seven thereof to the same penalties as if he had without reasonable excuse made default in furnishing a statement of particulars with respect to that name.

(3) So much of any provision of the Registration of Business Names Act, 1916, as requires a person's nationality, of origin to be stated shall cease to have effect.

(4) So much of section twenty-two of the Registration of Business Names Act, 1916, as provides that references in that Act to a former christian name or surname or to a change of name shall have any special meaning in the case of natural born British subjects shall cease to have effect, and—

(a) references in that Act to a former christian name or surname shall not, in the case of any person, include a former christian name or surname where that name or surname has been changed or disused before the person bearing the name had attained the age of eighteen years or has been changed or disused for a period of not less than twenty years; and

(b) an individual or firm shall not require to be registered under that Act by reason only of a change of his name, or of the name of a member of the firm, if the change has taken place before the person who has changed his name has attained the age of eighteen years or if not less than twenty years have elapsed since it took place.

(5) Where by virtue of the last foregoing subsection an individual or firm registered under the Registration of Business Names Act, 1916, no longer requires to be- so registered—

(a) the registrar, if so requested by the individual or firm, shall remove him or it from the register; and

(b) section eleven of that Act shall no longer require the individual or firm to keep exhibited the certificate of registration or a copy thereof;

and where, in any other case, the particulars registered under that Act in respect of any individual or firm include a former name or surname which by virtue of the last foregoing subsection no longer requires to be included among those particulars, the registrar, if so requested by the individual or firm, shall amend the particulars by leaving out that name or surname.