New controls on access to share registers received the green
light from Parliament last Thursday.
Although aimed primarily at "low-ball" unsolicited share
offers, the Corporations Amendment (No 1) Bill will also restrict
access to registers for a far wider range of users.
On the other side of the coin, companies will now have considerable
power to control who gets to look at their list of
shareholders.
How the Bill works
At present, anyone can access and obtain information from a
share register, provided they pay the required fee. The only legal
restriction is that they cannot subsequently use the information
for a purpose unrelated to the shareholding (the most obvious
example being the use of the register to create a mailing list for
shopping catalogues).
