New rules for companies start today

From today all New Zealand companies must have at least one director that either lives in New Zealand, or lives in Australia and is a director of a company incorporated in Australia.

This is part of a raft of changes under the Companies Amendment Act 2014 which came into force on 1 May 2015.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith says those that haven’t complied with this requirement risk being removed from the Companies Register.

“These changes have been introduced to improve the integrity of the information held on the register and have been phased in to give companies time to prepare,” Mr Goldsmith says.

“The measures are designed to maintain New Zealand’s reputation as an easy and transparent place to do business while also making it more difficult for criminals to operate undetected,” Mr Goldsmith says.

As at 1 May, around 13,000 (or just over 2 per cent) of all New Zealand companies on the Companies Register had not yet complied with these new director requirements. With the end of the transition period yesterday, these figures had fallen to 5900.

Mr Goldsmith said the Companies Office was working with companies that had not yet complied with the requirements to ensure they understood their obligations.