Company law – regulations to streamline company and LLP registers published

Regulations have been published in draft concerning the removal of the requirement to keep certain “local” registers of information relating to directors and people with significant control (PSCs) under the ECCTA:

• the draft Register of People with Significant Control (Amendment) Regulations 2025 and the draft Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (Consequential, Incidental and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2025 set out the changes for companies; and
• the draft Limited Liability Partnerships (Application and Modification of Company Law) Regulations 2025 make the same changes in relation to the PSC registers of LLPs. 

Companies will not be required to keep a register of directors, a register of directors’ residential addresses, a register of secretaries, or a register of PSCs once the relevant provisions in the ECCTA and these regulations are brought into force. Similarly, LLPs will no longer have to keep their own register of PSCs.

However, this information must still be provided to Companies House, as is the case now. Companies and LLPs will have a new obligation to notify Companies House if they serve a notice on a possible PSC, or third party who may have information about a possible PSC, and no reply is received (or a reply is not received within the statutory one month). If a company or LLP fails to notify Companies House in these circumstances, both the company and its directors will be guilty of an offence, punishable by a fine.

Once made, the provisions on registers in all three sets of regulations will come into force when the relevant provisions in the ECCTA are brought into force.