Slavenburg: Difference between revisions

The practice of modern financial law may be inane, [[tedious]] and confusing, but at least you don’t get sent to [[Companies House]] to file something with the express intent of having it thrown back in your face because you didn’t need to file it. This was a work-a-day experience for a young clerk in the last — I mean ''20th'' —century.

Successive UK [[Companies Act 2006 (UK)|Companies Acts]] required those benefiting from [[security interest]]s granted by UK companies to be register them at [[Companies House]]. You had exactly 21 days from the date of [[delivery]]  of the [[deed]] creating the [[charge]] to do it, on pain of your [[Security interest|security]] being rendered finally, fatally, and irrevocably void. Should you have been the one so lacking in the fastidious qualities all solicitors must have as to ''forget'', your own sorry hide would be summarily executed by the staff partner, after a brief show-trial. All excellent fun.

Now before about 2011, you also had to register [[charge]]s against ''foreign'' business with a UK “place of business”. Since no one knew what that meant and, by any lights, it could change over time, stripling clerks were shunted off to Companies House weekly to [[Registration of charges|register charges]] against ''any'' foreign company, including those without a hint of a UK dimension, and indeed those (UK tax-sheltering [[espievie]]s for example) that owed their utter, abject existence to not, in their weakest moment, having the merest fleeting conception that they might one day have a place of business in the UK.

This was also a tremendous jolly, and articled clerks would come home gleefully clutching a letter from matron politely explaining that the charge wasn’t ''needed'', wasn’t ''wanted'', but nonetheless acknowledging young sir had made this foolhardy attempt to register it all the same, and had been stoutly rebuffed at the door. [[Companies House]] would, in fact, run an ''[[ad hoc]]'' register of these failed charges, just in case anyone later should challenge such a charge as being unregistered without good cause. The vibe was this: I TRIED TO REGISTER THE DAMN THING. WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?