Latest Legislative Developments on "Shadow Companies"

Originally published 8 March 2010

Keywords: company names, shadow companies, Companies Ordinance, Companies Registrar, adopting, trade marks, rights

Summary

The Government has recently tabled a bill before the Legislative Council introducing changes to the company names system. Among other reforms, the proposal gives the Companies Registrar a power to substitute company names which are adjudged by the court to be infringing another's rights. This will, pending any further reform that might be introduced once the wholesale review of the Companies Ordinance is completed, enhance the enforcement of court orders against unscrupulous "shadow companies".

Full update

Companies adopting other people's trade marks as part of their company names are conveniently referred to as "shadow companies". To tackle the surge of shadow companies in the past few years, the Government proposed changes to the Companies Ordinance back in 2008 as part of the rewrite exercise.