.
British Company Law

Programme Features

• Company Law
  • historical evolution of British company law and fundamental concepts.
  • sources of company law: statutes, statutory instruments and case law
  • European dimension – EU company law directives
  • comparisons with some other jurisdictions – USA, Europe, tax havens
• Limited liability and types of company
  • unlimited and limited companies
  • private and public companies
  • small and medium companies
  • quoted companies
  • complex company structures: holding companies, subsidiaries and associate companies
  • consequences of legal form for public information disclosure
• Company formation and financing
  • registration at Companies House and key documents created
  • types of share capital – authorised, issued, equity, preference, convertible
  • company borrowing – bank overdrafts, secured loans, corporate bonds
• Company decision takers
  • duties and powers of directors, other company officers and shareholders
  • company records as a source of biographical data
• Corporate reporting and disclosure
  • annual report and accounts – contents and layout
  • other Companies House filings and company registers
  • prospectuses: when needed, what included and where found
  • variations in the quality of disclosure
• Corporate crimes and dangers and dissolving companies
  • fraud, false accounting, unlawful trading, insider dealing.
  • signs that a company may be in trouble
  • disqualification of directors and DTI inspections
  • voluntary winding-up, insolvency, bankruptcy, liquidation
• Radical reform: the Companies Act training
  • background to the reform proposals. Major changes introduced by the new
    Act
    

Why you should attend:

'Very important, but far too difficult for non-specialists' is how company law is typically viewed. This course distils the key legal principles which govern corporate activity for those who lack the time to follow lengthy conventional legal courses. It also goes beyond setting out the formal legislative framework to examine how these rules are applied in practice in British companies, featuring copious real life examples and looking at actual company documents. The course also identifies sources for researching companies and their directors.

On completing the course, you will:

• understand what company law provisions are intended to achieve
• be able to distinguish the theoretical legal position from business reality
• be able to decipher corporate legal jargon
• be able to assess which types of company information are available to researchers - and which are not
• be able to trace and use company documents – a vital tool for analysing a business
• be aware of the changes being proposed by the Government - the biggest ever shake-up of company law