Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) Updates Registration For Smes, Others

In line with the ease of doing business policy, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), has made changes to the pre-incorporation and post-incorporation processes on its portal.

In a statement culled from the Commission’s website, “users will now have an option to check for conflicting names before making a name reservation to reduce the number of denied name reservations and the attendant costs.”

“Users will no longer be directed to the ‘Upload’ segment of the website but will now be prompted to upload signed incorporation documents as soon as the payment of filing fees and stamp duties are made. Certificates of Incorporation will now be printed by the accredited user.

“The requirement for a valid Company email address is now mandatory as the Commission will communicate all future correspondences (including but not limited to the acknowledgment of post-incorporation filings) to the company via its registered email address. The procedure for making post-incorporation changes are as follows: When a company is incorporated, the portal sends a notification to the company’s registered email prompting it to create online profiles of accredited users who it intends to engage for purposes of its post-incorporation filings.

“The Company enters details of the users and their email addresses. Once this is completed, the accredited user receives an email with login details, which grants them access to the portal to process post-incorporation filings on behalf of that Company.

“Further, all CTC requests will now be made online and the CTCs printed by the user. All documents emanating from the Commission (Certificates of Incorporation and CTCs) will now bear an electronic certification stamp with a QR Code. The innovation of the QR Code enables any interested party with a smartphone to scan the code and confirm the authenticity of the document.

“There has also been a slight change to the cost of obtaining CTCs of Annual Returns. Typically, a company pays N2,000 for CTC of the Annual Returns Form CAC 10, the Company’s Audited Accounts and CAC’s letter. Companies will now be required to pay N2,000 for each of these documents,” the statement read in part.