Presidenct Muhammadu Buhari today 7 August assented to an amended Company law that permits e-meetings by private companies in Nigeria.

The President recently received the approved amended Companies and Allied Matters Bill from the National Assembly for assent.

The law provides for electronic filing of documents, transfer of shares, e-meetings, and remote general meetings for private companies.

Spokesperson, Femi Adesina, said that the law recognizes disruptions of technology and health challenges in managing companies.

“The Law is a response to the disruptions to close contact physical meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

He said small businesses will find it cheaper to register and manage their companies under the new law.

The new law also allows corporate promoters to establish a company with a single shareholder and create “limited liability partnerships.”

These innovations, Adesina said, give investors and businesspeople alternative ways of doing business in an “efficient and flexible way.”

He listed other innovative processes and procedures in the law to ease company operations as:

  • introducing Statements of Compliance
  • replacing “authorized share capital” with minimum share capital in order to reduce costs of incorporating companies,
  • mandatory disclosure of individual majority shareholders mandated to accountabile and transparent by disclosing holdings.
  • giving minority shareholders more protection and engagement, and
  • introducing reforms to rescue insolvent companies
  • allowing mergers of Trusteeship associations that share similar aims and objectives

Mr. Adesina claims that the new company law that permits e-meetings not been amended for 30 years. This is inaccurate, because there were other amendments from the Act, including the Investment and Securities Act of 2007.

The Companies and Allied Matters Act of 1990 derived from the work of the Law Reform Commission of 1987.

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