KARACHI (September 10 2003) : The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has promulgated new Companies (Registration Offices) Regulation, 2003, substituting the Companies (Registration Offices) Regulation, 1986 with a view to improving the document management, and boost efficient internal working of the Commission's Company Registration Offices (CRO).
This would also help to eradicate redundant manual work at CROs, especially maintaining various registers, that have been considerably reduced in number and re-designed, considering the information technology solutions, and the automation already adopted by the SECP, an SECP release said.
It is envisaged that the new Regulations would facilitate the corporate entities in timely compliance with the statutory requirements as well as the CROs in maintaining the companies' data and retrieval of requisite information from the database more efficiently.
Some of the major reforms introduced with a view to pursuing statutory compliance in the corporate sector are as under:
Time period for examination of documents, applications, etc.
In the past, no time period was defined for the Registrar concerned to examine, or cause to be examined, the documents received in a CRO.
To inculcate a culture of quick dispensation to the corporate entities, the 2003 Regulations have now specifically defined the quickest possible time in which the Registrar concerned would examine the documents or applications filed and in case of delay, reasons and circumstances causing the delay shall be recorded.
Most of the applications and statutory returns would be disposed of, registered or recorded within one day.
However, certificates of commencement of business, registration of a foreign company and incorporation of a company shall be issued within a period of two and three days respectively, while inspection of documents kept by the Registrar would be carried out within an hour.
Payment of additional fee for late filing of documents;
The documents filed with a CRO after the prescribed period were accepted for record, without absolving any liability arising out of default to comply, on payment of three times additional filing fee, in addition to normal filing fee.
To encourage the companies to promptly comply with the statutory requirements, an incentive of less additional filing fee slabs has been provided.
Documents filed with delay not exceeding 15 days would be charged with an additional fee equal to the usual fee specified for the document in the Sixth Schedule.
In case of documents filed with a delay exceeding 15 days, but less than 45 days, and a delay exceeding 45 days an additional fee equal to two times and three times of the usual fee respectively, would be charged.
