Statutes (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Bill introduced in Parliament

Date: 08 September 2014
 

1 The Ministry of Finance introduced the Statutes (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No.2) Bill in Parliament on 8 Sept 2014.

Amendments related to the changes being made to the Companies Act

2 The Bill amends the Accountants Act, Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP) Act and Limited Partnerships (LP) Act to align provisions in these Acts to the amendments being made to the Companies Act. Consequential and technical amendments are also made to other pieces of legislation  in relation to the changes being made to the Companies Act. The key amendments are:

(a) Allowing a person to reflect an alternate address in the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority’s (ACRA) public records. Due to concerns about the public disclosure of residential addresses, the Accountants Act, LLP Act and LP Act are amended to allow a person to reflect, in ACRA’s public records, his residential address or an alternate address where he can be located, as his reported address. Safeguards against fraudulent reporting and the filing of invalid addresses will be introduced.

(b) Allowing the Registrar to restore an LLP struck off as a result of the Registrar’s review. The LLP Act is amended to allow the Registrar to restore an LLP which has been struck-off as a result of a review conducted by the Registrar, without the need for the LLP to apply to the Court. The circumstances under which such an application for restoration may be made will be prescribed in the subsidiary legislation.

(c) Giving the Registrar more powers to rectify errors in the register. The LLP Act and LP Act are amended to widen the type of errors which the Registrar may rectify on application of an LLP or LP. This includes errors in filing that are unintended and do not prejudice any person. The LLP or LP need not apply to the Court to rectify such errors.

In addition, the Registrar will also be empowered to rectify or update the register on his own initiative under certain circumstances, for example, where the errors are grammatical or typographical, or where there are inconsistencies between the information on the register and information obtained from credible third-party sources.

Amendments to the Singapore Accountancy Commission Act

3 The Bill also amends the Singapore Accountancy Commission Act to allow accounting entities that meet the prescribed requirements to use the “Chartered Accountant of Singapore” or “CA (Singapore)” designation as part of the entities’ names. This will promote the professional designation in the Singapore accountancy sector. It is also consistent with legislation regulating other professions which allows companies and LLPs to use the designations in their entities’ names.