No company, association, or partnership consisting of more than twenty persons shall be formed for the purpose of carrying on any business (other than the business of banking) that has for its object the acquisition of gain by the company, association, or partnership, or by the individual members thereof, unless it is registered as a company under this Act, or is formed in pursuance of some other Act of Parliament, or of letters patent, or is a company engaged in working mines within the stannaries and subject to the jurisdiction of the court exercising the stannaries jurisdiction.

This section shall not apply in relation to any body of persons for the time being approved for the purposes of Part I of the [2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 57.] War Risks Insurance Act, 1939, by the Minister of Transport, being a body the objects of which are or include the carrying on of business by way of the re-insurance of risks which may be re-insured under any agreement for the purpose mentioned in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section one of that Act.