False Document: CAC Says Erring Lawyers Liable To Two Years Imprisonment

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) says any accredited lawyer found culpable for filing false document in the course of company registration will be liable to two years imprisonment.

Registrar-General of the Commission, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, made the declaration in a forum with the Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN) yesterday in Abuja.

The commission commenced implementation of the new Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (CAMA 2020) on January 1 and has equally launched a new self-service portal to promote Ease of Doing Business (EoDB).

The portal allows for end-to-end electronic submission by customers.

Abubakar said once a document is submitted by accredited lawyers or certified secretaries (customers) on behalf of a company, the commission presumes that those documents are regular and the person that submitted had authority.

“If anybody makes any mistake or false declaration or submit any information that is false, that person will be liable to two years imprisonment upon conviction.

“We advise our customers to ensure they had proper authority to make filings on behalf of companies that engage them. If there is any wrong information or any misstatement in the document submitted they will be held responsible,’’ he said.

Abubakar, however, stated that the new system has placed a lot of responsibilities on the persons submitting documents on behalf of the companies.

He explained that this became necessary because the strict requirements of the past where its officers had to compare signatures and looked at other documents to validate the new filling has been relaxed.

He added that the commission had embarked on various initiatives towards repositioning the commission to be a world class company registry in line with the EODB of the government.

Abubakar said the agency had come up with regulations to support the implementations of the new CAMA, 2020.

He added that under the new law there were a lot of changes to what was obtainable, both in terms of registration requirements and in terms of number of legal entities that could now be registered.

According to him, a draft regulation to support the implementation was approved by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo in December 2020.

He said this had various forms to be used in filling applications for new and post-registration, fees to be charged for various services as well as new set of model articles of association.

President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the CAMA 2020 in August 2020, which repeals and replaces the CAMA 1990.

The CAC had given registered companies until April 1 to revalidate their various information and accounts or face sanctions.