Companies (Amendment) Act, 1986

Publication of full or abbreviated accounts.

19.—(1) Where a company publishes its full accounts, it shall also publish with those accounts any report in relation to those accounts specified in subsection (3) of section 18 of this Act and, if the auditors of the company have refused to provide the directors of the company with a report under subsection (4) of that section, an indication of the refusal.

(2) Where a company publishes abbreviated accounts relating to any financial year, it shall also publish a statement indicating—

(a) that the accounts are not the accounts copies of which are required by this Act to be annexed to the annual return,

(b) whether the copies of the accounts so required to be so annexed have in fact been so annexed,

(c) whether the auditors of the company have made a report under section 163 of the Principal Act in respect of the accounts of the company which relate to any financial year with which the abbreviated accounts purport to deal,

(d) whether the report of the auditors under the said section 163 as to the matters mentioned in the Seventh Schedule to the Principal Act contained any qualifications.

(3) Where a company publishes abbreviated accounts, it shall not publish with those accounts any such report of the auditors as is mentioned in subsection (2) (c) of this section.

(4) In this section—

“abbreviated accounts”, in relation to a company, means any balance sheet or profit and loss account, or summary or abstract of a balance sheet or profit and loss account, relating to a financial year of the company which is published by the company otherwise than as part of the full accounts of the company for that financial year and, in relation to a holding company, includes an account in any form purporting to be a balance sheet or profit and loss account, or a summary or abstract of a balance sheet or profit and loss account, of the group consisting of the holding company and its subsidiaries;

“full accounts”, in relation to a company, means accounts of the company prepared in accordance with section 3 or sections 10 to 12 of this Act and, except in the case of a company which is exempt by virtue of the said section 10 from annexing a copy of such report to the annual return, the report of the directors of the company specified in section 158 (1) of the Principal Act;

“publish”, in relation to a document, includes issue, circulate or otherwise make it available for public inspection in a manner calculated to invite the public generally, or any class of members of the public, to read the document, and cognate words shall be construed accordingly.