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Thousands of New Zealand firms fall foul of new director rules

Xinhua, October 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Thousands of New Zealand companies face being removed from the companies register unless they meet new requirements on their directors under rules coming into force on Thursday.

All New Zealand companies must now have at least one director who either lives in New Zealand, or lives in Australia and is a director of a company incorporated in Australia, according to the Companies Amendment Act 2014.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith said the changes had been introduced to improve the integrity of the information held on the register.

"The measures are designed to maintain New Zealand's reputation as an easy and transparent place to do business while also making it more difficult for criminals to operate undetected," Goldsmith said in a statement.

On May 1, when the Act took effect, around 13,000, or just more than 2 percent, of all New Zealand companies on the companies register had not complied with the new director requirements

As of Wednesday, the number was down to 5,900, said Goldsmith.

The Companies Office was working with companies that had not yet complied with the requirements to ensure they understood their obligations.

The Act also requires all companies to provide the dates and places of birth of all directors, and provide details of any ultimate holding company if applicable.

New Zealand has come under international pressure to tighten its company registration procedures since 2009 when authorities in Thailand seized an aircraft carrying 35 tonnes of weapons that had been illegally flown out of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

A United Nations Security Council report on the incident the following year highlighted the fact that the aircraft had been chartered by a shell company registered in New Zealand.

New laws passed in June last year gave the companies registrar more powers to investigate companies and limited partnerships and to prevent foreign entities abusing the country's registration regime. Enditem