UK Offence Report

Outstanding requirements under old section 447 of the 1985 Act

article 7(4) of The Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004 (Commencement) and Companies Act 1989 (Commencement No 18) Order 2004

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

4 Where a person provides information on or after 6th April 2005 in purported compliance with an outstanding requirement and in doing so commits an offence under section 451, the court, on summary conviction of that person for that offence, may not impose a term of imprisonment greater than six months.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 7(4)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004 (Commencement) and Companies Act 1989 (Commencement No 18) Order 2004.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
9 December 2004
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order brings into force– on 1 January 2005 the provisions of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004 set out in Schedule 1, on 6 April 2005 the provisions set out in Schedule 2, on 1 July 2005 the provisions set out in Schedule 3, and on 1 October 2005, all remaining provisions, set out in Schedule 4. Article 3 contains a transitional provision under which section 7 will not apply to company accounts for periods beginning before 1 October 2005. Article 4 contains a transitional provision under which section 8 will not apply to directors' reports concerning financial years beginning before 1 April 2005 or ending before 6 April 2005. Article 5 contains a transitional provision under which section 19 will not cause provisions for indemnifying directors from liability which were made on or before the date of Royal assent, 28 October 2004, to become void if they were previously not void. Articles 6 to 13 contains transitional provisions relating to company investigations. The Act will be wholly in force on 1 October 2005. The Order also brings section 46 of and Schedule 13 to the Companies Act 1989 (“the 1989 Act”) into force on 1 January 2005: a the provisions of the 1989 Act brought into force before the making of the Companies Act 1989 (Commencement No 15 and Transitional and Savings Provisions) Order 1995 (SI 1995/1352) are set out in a note appended to that Order; b that 1995 Order brought– i section 140(1) to (6); ii paragraph 20 of Schedule 19; and iii repeals by Schedule 24 in section 464 of the 1985 Act and of the definition of “annual return” in section 744 of that Act, into force on 3 July 1995, subject to transitional and saving provisions; c the Companies Act 1989 (Commencement No 16) Order 1995 (SI 1995/1591) brought sections 171, 176 and 181 into force on 4 July 1995; d the Companies Act 1989 (Commencement No 17) Order 1998 (SI 1998/1747) brought sections 185 and 186 into force on 10 August 1998.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person “commits an offence”; c10_offence_under_parent_act
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source