Territorial Application
10.Company law matters relating to Scotland are reserved to the UK Parliament under the Scotland Act 1998. Those relating to Wales have not been transferred to the National Assembly for Wales under the Government of Wales Act 1998. Company law in Northern Ireland is a transferred matter under the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Most of the provisions in the Act therefore extend to England and Wales and to Scotland, but not to Northern Ireland. However, provisions in the Act which amend existing legislation have the same territorial application as the legislation they are amending and this affects Northern Ireland. For example:
section 11 (allowing the Inland Revenue to pass information to authorised persons) contains provisions applying in Northern Ireland in that they amend certain Northern Ireland legislation;
the amendment in Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1990 on competition scrutiny of supervisory and qualifying bodies extends only to Northern Ireland;
the amendment in Part 3 of Schedule 2 of section 87 of the Companies Act 1989 which concerns disclosure of information to enable or assist the CIC Regulator to discharge his functions extends to Northern Ireland because section 213 of the 1989 Act applies that section to Northern Ireland.
11.Section 14 (which provides for a body - likely to be the Review Panel of the Financial Reporting Review Panel Ltd - to be appointed to look at periodic accounts and reports under Listing Rules) extends to Northern Ireland because financial services and markets legislation covers the whole of the UK. Section 15(1)(b) and (3) extend to Northern Ireland. These subsections make provisions of Northern Ireland legislation (allowing the Inland Revenue to disclose information) apply in relation to the prescribed body appointed under section 14. In the case of audit regulation, section 17 (which gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations imposing a levy for meeting the costs of any body - likely to be the Financial Reporting Council - to whom the Secretary of State proposes to make a grant undersection 16) also extends to Northern Ireland. This is because it is efficient for the levy provisions to apply on a UK basis, given the small number of persons who would be the subject of a separate Northern Ireland levy. In the case of community interest companies, section 40 has an impact on Scottish charity law, which is a devolved matter. A Sewel motion was passed in respect of this section on 4 March 2004.
