Erica Virtue, Staff ReporterMore than 26,000 companies, including many headed by some of Jamaica's more prominent citizens are indebted to the Registrar of Companies to the tune of about $140.4 million, having not filed annual returns for up to 25 years.
But the Registrar of Companies has struck back and in its bid to find the delinquents and collect the outstanding fees, has filed 110 lawsuits, and has hired additional staff to hunt, find and prosecute delinquent company directors.
Documents which The Sunday Gleaner received, showed that more than a third of the nearly 65,000 companies registered up to November last year were delinquent. Officials say the task of finding company officials to bring them to book was massive.
Compliance manager Shellie Leon said they have published the names of some delinquent companies, their directors and shareholders in an effort to collect outstanding sums and warn the public.
"What was published is just a scratch in the bucket. It is estimated that by the end of this financial year, that is March, about 26,660 companies will be on the register as delinquent. It is enormous," Ms. Leon said in an interview a week ago.
Asked to give an estimate of the loss in revenue to the Registrar of Companies, she could not, but gave this example: "Imagine one company owing $100,000 and has been delinquent for 20 years. Just imagine several with 10, 20 years delinquency," she said.
Delinquency, according to Deputy Chief Executive Officer Judith Logan, means that companies "have not met their statutory obligations under the Companies Act. They are to file annual returns every year, (but) they haven't done so; they are to file registered offices notices, if they have moved, they haven't done so...The Companies Act requires that certain documents are filed within a certain time. And if you don't, you are delinquent."
Mrs. Logan explained that it was not the duty of Registrar officials to police company directors; rather it was their obligation to comply with the law.
Asked who was liable when a company was delinquent, she said: "Usually it is the directors who are appointed by the shareholders to run the company on a daily basis. So it is they who are liable primarily, but the shareholders too, are in a way responsible, because they have hired them to run the companies and if they are not doing it, they should get other persons to do it."
Mrs. Logan said that for a fee of $5,400, a company could file annual returns.
She explained that every company was duty bound to register and give a status report on the company annually, in addition to registering its offices, directors and shareholders. It costs $3,000 to file the annual returns, $1,200 to register the office and a similar sum for the particulars of directors and shareholders.
Companies in breach of the law face fines of up to $40,000 in addition to the outstanding, sum when caught and taken before the court, according to Ms. Leon.
The website of the Registrar of Companies carries a list of more than 400 delinquent companies, some of whose directors are prominent business names, attorneys-at-law and communication specialists.
Several attorneys-at-law, who have been barred from practising here, others reported to the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council, feature prominently as directors or shareholders on the list of delinquent companies.
Among some are names listed are many who headed financial institutions which are now under the control of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC).
Ms. Leon said that since the publication of the list, "some of them have come in, and others which were not listed, have been asking about the status of their own companies.
