Publication
What M&A trends will transform the 2024 insurance landscape?
It is widely accepted that 2023 was one of the worst years in recent memory for M&A activity.
Global | Publication | March 30, 2018
Welcome to Essential Corporate News, our weekly news service covering the latest developments in the UK corporate world.
On March 15, 2018 the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced that it was introducing reforms to the existing UK merger control regime to strengthen the Government’s power to scrutinise mergers on the grounds of national security. This is the first significant amendment to the UK merger control regime since the Enterprise Act 2002 (EA02) came into force.
For a briefing from the Anti-trust and Competition team click here.
On March 28, 2018 the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published an updated version of its questions and answers on prospectuses. The updated version includes a new Q&A designed to assist in the identification of profit forecasts.
New Question 102 explains the definition of “profit forecast” included in Article 2(10) of the Prospectus Regulation (Regulation 809/2004) and provides examples of what may or may not constitute a profit forecast. The Q&A clarifies the following:
On March 23, 2018, the House of Commons Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Committee (BEIS Committee) announced the launch of an inquiry into executive pay and the gender pay gap in the private sector. The BEIS Committee is looking at these issues in light of concerns about the overall level of executive pay and bonuses and the fact that the deadline for gender pay gap reporting is April 4, 2018.
Gender pay gap
The BEIS Committee has asked for written evidence on the following questions:
Executive pay
The BEIS Committee has asked for written evidence on the following questions:
Next steps
Evidence on gender pay gap reporting is requested by April 10, 2018 and evidence on executive pay is requested by May 8, 2018.
(BEIS Committee, Corporate governance: delivering on fair pay inquiry, 23.03.18)
On March 23, 2018 Companies House announced that a company director had been successfully prosecuted for falsifying company information in breach of section 1112 Companies Act 2006, in what is thought to be the first-ever conviction of its kind.
Section 1112 Companies Act 2006 makes it an offence for a person knowingly or recklessly to deliver or cause to be delivered to the registrar of companies, for the purposes of the Companies Acts, a document, or make, for any such purpose, a statement that is misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular.
In this case, an individual had incorporated a company in 2013, making Vince Cable MP a director and shareholder without his knowledge. That company was dissolved and taken off the company register after Companies House took action. He then formed another company in 2016 making other MPs and an imaginary Israeli national all directors and shareholders without their knowledge. Once again, Companies House dissolved the company and took it off the companies register.
On conviction, the individual was ordered to pay over £12,000.
Publication
It is widely accepted that 2023 was one of the worst years in recent memory for M&A activity.
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