Commerce ministry seeks stakeholders’ feedback about the draft
The commerce ministry has sought feedback from public and stakeholders about the draft Companies Act-2013 by May 15, officials said.
They said the ministry had drafted the act, allowing the Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate serious fraud by companies or individuals under the cover of the companies.
The officials said the ministry had already published the proposed act drafted in Bangla on the ministry’s web site.
They said that the government was going to formulate a new companies act in order to create an investment and business-friendly environment, bring the business activities in discipline and protect shareholders and public interest.
In the proposed draft, the government dropped the provision, which was kept in a primary draft, of appointing administrator in the companies plagued with fraudulent activities.
‘Stakeholders including businesspeople and companies law expert disagreed on the provision as there is a possibility of misuse of the provision,’ commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed told New Age on Monday.
‘So the ministry has dropped the provision,’ he said adding that the provision of appointing administrator had been included in the Multi-Level Marketing Act.
He, however, said that there were many provisions in the proposed companies act to protect shareholders and public from being cheated.
According to the draft, the government has proposed maximum 10 years of imprisonment and financial penalty for fraud in business.
‘The minimum punishment will be three years of imprisonment if public interest is involved,’ the act proposed.
Offences such as fraudulent conduct of business, fraudulently inducing person to invest money and taking deposits from public, providing false statement in income tax return, financial statement or in other documents, issuing false certificate of shares, misstatement in business prospectus, will be non-bailable, the draft act stated.
The draft also proposed prevention of companies other than banks and non-bank financial institutions from receiving deposits from public.
Under the draft act, the government can authorise the ACC to investigate activities of a company if it thinks necessary considering public interest, on request from any office of the government or based on inspection report by the register office.
The ACC will be allowed to arrest any person if it thinks that the person
is engaged in any fraudulent activities stated in the act.
The ACC can investigate affairs of any company based on applications made by a specified number of shareholders.
According to the draft law, companies other than banks and non-bank financial institutions will not be allowed to receive deposits from public.
The companies which have already taken deposits from public, they
would have to pay clients the deposits with interest by one year after the enactment of the law, it said.
In case of failure, the companies will be penalised with Tk 1 crore to Tk 10 crore in addition to the amounts of deposits with interest and people responsible for such failure will be sentenced with highest 7 years of imprisonment.
-with New Age input
