COMPANIES LAW AMENDMENT. (Hansard, 5 August 1924)

§ Mr. REMER
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give powers to the President of the Board of Trade to refuse the use of the word 'British' by Limited Liability Companies and to impose limitations upon its use. The use of the word "British" by limited liability companies has become a real scandal. It has been used by public companies for the purpose of cloaking their foreign nationality and has been abused in many other directions. This matter has come to a head recently by the registration in London of a company which is known as British Progress Limited. British Progress Limited has three directors. The first director who owns eight-ninths of the share capital in the company is of the name—and for the purposes of greater accuracy I propose to spell it—of Samuel Zwick. I understand that he is an unnaturalised Russian. The second director is of the name of Isaac Arone, a naturalised British subject born in Lithuania, and the third director is named Samuel Kalmanson, a naturalised United States citizen, born in Russia. Out of the shares of this company eight-ninths 2759 are held by the first director, and the other two directors hold all the rest. The company was formed for the purpose of dealing in aeroplanes. The use of the name "British" by such a company—and it is a growing practice for people of that kind to use the name "British"—is a scandal and should therefore be dealt with by legislation. The President of the Board of Trade, in reply to a question which I put to him recently, said that he had no powers under the existing Companies Act, but that, when the Companies Act came up again for revision, he would give consideration to Amendments of the law. This matter is too urgent to wait that lengthy period, and, therefore, I am introducing a Bill for the purpose of amending the present law. The Bill provides that in the case of a company which has the word "British" as part of its trading name, all the directors shall be of British nationality. The second Clause provides that the memorandum or articles of association shall be so worded that 51 per cent. of the shareholding of the company shall always be of British nationality—

§ Captain BERKELEY
British born or naturalised British subjects?

§ Mr. REMER
—or naturalised British subjects. It is a very simple Bill, and is for the purpose of dealing with what is a very serious scandal.