If you are thinking of forming a new company, limited liability partnership or business, new regulations coming into force on 31 January 2015 may help when it comes to choosing your company name.

Current legislation regulates the use of company and business names in order to protect the public from harm caused by the use of names that falsely:

•  suggest business pre-eminence, a particular status, or convey authority;
• imply a connection with a government department or local or public authority; or
• cause a criminal offence.

The list of “sensitive” words that a company needs permission from the Secretary of State to use is also quite extensive.

As part of the Government’s commitment to reducing red tape, new Regulations have been published which will:

• reduce the list of sensitive words;
• remove important words such as “National”, “European” and “United Kingdom from the sensitive list;
• permit the use of various accents and other signs or symbols, which will be helpful for anyone wishing to form a company with a foreign word in its name; and
• make it easier to use words, such as “Export”, “Group”, “Holdings”, “Imports”, “International” and “Services”.

Further, changes to disclosure requirements mean that where at least six companies operate from or are registered at one office, place or location it will no longer be necessary to display the details of all companies at the site. Instead, the information may be held and made available for inspection on request.

Further details on these changes, as set out in the draft Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2014 can be found here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/3140/pdfs/uksi_20143140_en.pdf.

For more information, please contact Deborah Angel.

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