§ 64 and 65. Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) in how many cases his Department has on its own initiative, without request from shareholders, initiated investigations into the affairs of public companies; and with what results;
(2) whether he will give for the longest convenient stated period of time the number of requests he has received under Section 165 of the Companies Act, 1948, for investigation into company affairs, the number of such requests which were
Year Applications or cases noted Inspectors appointed under Appointments relating to Cases in which appointments not made section 164 Section 165(a)(i) section 165(b) Public Companies Private Companies 1958 … … 64 2 — 1 1 2 61 1959 … … 67 2 — 1 1 2 64 1960 … … 72 — — 14 13 1 58 1961 … … 81 — — 5 3 2 76 1962 … … 88 1 — 10 3 8 77 1963 … … 90 — 5 2 2 5 83 1964 … … 121 — 2 12 7 7 107 1965 … … 146 — 2 2 3 1 142 1966 … … 150 1 — 13 3 11 136 1967 … … 240 — — 18 12 6 222 1968 … … 338 1 1 14 — 16 322 1969 … … 390 — — 26 3 23 364 Notes:
1. Column 3: Apart from these appointments the Board have conducted inquiries under section 109 of the Companies Act 1967 (see note 4 below).
2. Column 5: Appointments were not made in these instances because either there was no case, or they were not proceeded with, or they were disposed of after discussion with the persons concerned, or the companies were compulsorily wound up or went into voluntary liquidation, or inquiries were conducted under section 109 of the Companies Act 1967. It is not possible to quote figures under each of these separate heads.
3. Cases being considered at the beginning of each year have been excluded from the table. There were 52 such cases at the end of 1969.
4. The Board's powers under section 109 of the Companies Act 1967 were invoked in 27 cases in 1967, 47 in 1968 and 62 in 1969. Of these cases, in 1967 one inquiry under section 109 of the Act of 1967 was superseded by the appointment of an inspector under section 165(b) of the Act of 1948: the numbers of similar supersessions for 1968 and 1969 were respectively 8 and 13 (including one public company).
5. Further information about investigations can be obtained from the Companies Annual Reports copies of which are in the Library.