Companies Registration Office has 32,000 firms in sight as enforcement ramps up

The Companies Registration Office introduced a hiatus soon after the pandemic began

​Donal O’Donovan

The Companies Registration Office (CRO) has around 32,000 companies in its sights for failing to make up-to-date annual return filings, meaning they face potential strike-off.

Last week almost 1,000 companies were struck off in a significant ramp-up in activity which had ground to a halt during the Covid pandemic.

The CRO is the State agency responsible for maintaining the register of statutory information on Irish companies and business names.

All companies are obliged by law to maintain up-to-date public filings including an annual return in order to operate in Ireland.

The paperwork includes basic information that helps establish a business is legitimate, including details of its registration number, registered office address, names of directors and their holdings, if any, in the company.

Depending on their size and nature, a business may be obliged to make additional filings such as company accounts with the CRO, all of which are available to the public.

Where the CRO identifies companies that are not up to date, it issues an initial 10-week warning letter.

An involuntary strike-off notice is issued 10 weeks later.

Following that, the company will be struck off two months after the involuntary strike-off notice if it still fails to get its paperwork in order.

A spokeswoman for the CRO said approximately 11,500 companies have received an involuntary strike-off notice under this process.

When a company has been involuntarily struck off, the Corporate Enforcement Authority can apply to the High Court seeking to disqualify one or all of the directors from acting as a director in future, or from being otherwise involved in the management of a firm.

The assets of a company that has been involuntarily struck off become the property of the State.

Directors can also lose the protection of limited liability, which leaves them liable for the debts of the business.

Enforcement and strike-off proceedings were halted during the pandemic, leading to a large backlog building up before enforcement and strike-off process resumed last July.

The CRO says it expects to have worked through the backlog by the end of June.