Companies Commission of Malaysia provides new guidance for Liquidators
08 April 2024
The Companies Commission of Malaysia issued the following documents on 1 April 2024:
This article sets out the requirements under the above-referred documents.
Practice Note No. 6/2024
Section 433 of the Companies Act 2016 (“the Act”), inter alia, sets out the requirements in relation to the qualifications of a liquidator. Sections 433(4D) and 433(4E) were introduced into the Act upon the coming into operation of the Companies (Amendment) Act 2024 on 1 April 2024.
Section 433(4D), inter alia, requires any person who has been approved as a liquidator by the Minister of Finance under section 433(4) to notify the Registrar of the following particulars within 30 days of his approval as a liquidator:
- personal information of the approved liquidator;
- approval as an approved liquidator;
- the firm of the approved liquidators, including partners of the firm and branches, if any; and
- any other particulars required by the Registrar.
Section 433(4E) requires a liquidator to update the particulars specified in section 433(4D) within 14 days from the date on which such change occurred.
Practice Note No. 6/2024 is issued as a result of the introduction of sections 433(4D) and 433(4E). In particular, paragraph 7 of Practice Note No. 6/2024 sets out details of the information which is to be provided to the Registrar under paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of section 433(4D). Practice Note No. 6/2024 further provides that the information required under paragraph 7 is to be lodged in the form set out as Appendix 1 to Practice Note No. 6/2024.
Practice Note No. 6/2024 further requires any updated information that is to be provided under section 433(4E) to be lodged with the Registrar using Appendix 1 together with information of the date on which the change occurred.
According to paragraph 4 of Practice Note No. 6/2024, the requirements of the new sections 433(4D) and 433(4E) are in line with the Guidelines for Approval of Liquidator issued by the Accountant General’s Department of Malaysia (“AG’s Guidelines”).
Revised Circular No. 1/2020
Revised Circular No. 1/2020 is an update of a previous circular bearing the same reference number issued on 24 January 2020 (as amended on 6 August 2020) (collectively “Superseded Circular”).
The main changes in Revised Circular No. 1/2020 are as follows:
- the substitution of paragraphs 17 to 19 of the Superseded Circular, which relate to the lodgement of information by a liquidator with the Registrar, with a statement in paragraph 17 of Revised Circular No. 1/2020 to refer to Practice Note No. 6/2024 for the requirements relating to notification to the Registrar; and
- the inclusion of a reference to sections 433(4D) and 433(4E) of the Act in paragraph 16 of Revised Circular No. 1/2020; the Superseded Circular referred only to paragraph 5.7 (now paragraph 5.6) of the AG’s Guidelines as the legal basis for notification and updating of information.
Apart from the above, Revised Circular No. 1/2020 also makes some drafting amendments to certain provisions of the Superseded Circular.
Comments
As the information to be provided to the Registrar in Appendix A to Practice Note No. 6/2024 is identical to that in Appendix A referred to in paragraph 17 of the Superseded Circular, there is no change in the information to be provided under Practice Note No. 6/2024. However, it should be noted that unlike the AG’s Guidelines which allow updates of particulars to be lodged within 30 days from the occurrence of the change, section 433(4E) requires the information to be lodged with the Registrar within 14 days from the occurrence of the change.
Alert by Tan Wei Liang (Senior Associate) of the Corporate Practice of Skrine.