The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has said it will remove 100,000 firms from its record if they don’t follow the rules set down in the firms and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) and stay inactive for a long time.
The Commission is trying to clean up Nigeria’s corporate registration so that only active and compliant businesses stay in the system. This action is part of that endeavour.
It also fits with continuing attempts to make firm ownership and governance more open in line with anti-money laundering regulations.
The Commission put out a public notice saying that the companies in question have been found to be either not doing business, inactive for at least 10 years, or not meeting their regulatory obligations, especially the annual filing of returns and the disclosure of Persons with Significant Control (PSC).
The CAC has given these businesses 90 days from the date of publication to make their status official.
Companies that are affected, on the other hand, must quickly complete all of their overdue yearly filings and, if necessary, send activation emails to activation@cac.gov.ng to prevent being struck off.
The notice made it clear that “any company that is struck off the Register of Companies may not continue to do business unless it is restored by an order of the Federal High Court.” It also reminded the public of a similar notice from July of last year, when several companies were delisted in November.
The Commission made it clear that it used its authority under Section 692 (4) of CAMA 2020 to remove enterprises who didn’t or wouldn’t file their annual returns on time. The firms that were taken off the list were considered to have dissolved as of the date of publication.
The Commission sent out a Notice of Intention to strike down the names of Companies that the Commission has good grounds to suspect are not doing business or are otherwise inactive since they haven’t filed Annual Returns in 10 years. The Commission said at the time, “These companies had 90 days to file their Annual Returns and send an activation email to activation@cac.gov.ng.”
“Companies that are removed from the register are considered to have been dissolved as of the date of publication. The statement went on to say, “It is against the law to do business with or make a deal with a company that has been dissolved.”
