Companies Act 1948

426 Inspection, production and evidence of documents kept by registrar.

(1) Any person may—

(a) inspect the documents kept by the registrar of companies, on payment of such fee as may be appointed by the Board of Trade, not exceeding one shilling for each inspection;

(b) require a certificate of the incorporation of any company, or a copy or extract of any other document or any part of any other document, to be certified by the registrar, on payment for the certificate, certified copy or extract of such fees as the Board of Trade may appoint, not exceeding five shillings for a certificate of incorporation and not exceeding sixpence for each folio of a certified copy or extract:

Provided that,—

(i) in relation to documents delivered to the registrar with a prospectus in pursuance of sub-paragraph (i) of paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section forty-one of this Act, the rights conferred by this subsection shall be exercisable only during the fourteen days, beginning with the date of publication of the prospectus or with the permission of the Board of Trade, and in relation to documents so delivered in pursuance of paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section four hundred and twenty of this Act the said rights shall be exercisable only during the fourteen days beginning with the date of the prospectus or with the permission of the Board of Trade; and

(ii) the right conferred by paragraph (a) of this subsection shall not extend to any copy sent to the registrar under section three hundred and seventy-two of this Act of a statement as to the affairs of a company or of any comments of the receiver or his successor or a continuing receiver or manager thereon, but only to the summary thereof, except where the person claiming the right either is or is the agent of a person stating himself in writing to be a member or creditor of the company to which the statement relates, and the right conferred by paragraph (b) of this subsection shall be similarly limited.

(2) No process for compelling the production of any document kept by the registrar shall issue from any court except with the leave of that court, and any such process if issued shall bear thereon a statement that it is issued with the leave of the court.

(3) A copy of, or extract from, any document kept and registered at any of the offices for the registration of companies in England or Scotland, certified to be a true copy under the hand of the registrar (whose official position it shall not be necessary to prove), shall in all legal proceedings be admissible in evidence as of equal validity with the original document.

(4) Any person untruthfully stating himself in writing for the purposes of proviso (ii) to subsection (1) of this section to be a member or creditor of a company shall be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.

(5) In the application of this section to Scotland, as in its application to England, a folio shall be deemed to consist of seventy-two words.