Companies (Amendment) Act, 1983
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Trading under misleading name. |
56.—(1) A person who is not a public limited company or (after the end of the general transitional period) is an old public limited company shall be guilty of an offence if he carries on any trade, profession or business under a name which includes, as its last part, the words “public limited company”, or “cuideachta phoiblí theoranta” or abbreviations of those words. | |
(2) A public limited company other than an old public limited company shall be guilty of an offence if, in circumstances in which the fact that it is a public limited company is likely to be material to any person, it uses a name which may reasonably be expected to give the impression that it is a company other than a public limited company. | ||
(3) Where, within the re-registration period, an old public limited company applies to be re-registered under section 12 as a public limited company, then— | ||
(a) during the twelve months following the re-registration, any provision of section 114 (1) (b) or (c) of the Principal Act; and | ||
(b) during the three years following the re-registration, section 114(1) (a) of the Principal Act or any provision of any other Act or statutory instrument requiring or authorising the name of the company to be shown on any document or other object, | ||
shall apply as if any reference in that provision to the name of the company were a reference to a name which either is its name or was its name before re-registration. | ||
(4) Subsection (1) shall not apply to any company— | ||
(a) to which Part XI of the Principal Act applies; and | ||
(b) which has provisions in its constitution that would entitle it to rank as a public limited company if it had been registered in the State. | ||
(5) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) or (2) and, if that person is a company, any officer of the company who is in default shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500 together with, in the case of a continuing offence, a fine not exceeding £50 for every day on which the offence continues, but not exceeding £1,000 in total. |