The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) has released the names of the 20 listed companies that breached the Companies Act by misstating their annual turnover and paying the incorrect fees to the CIPC.

The 20 companies are Adcock Ingram, Astral Foods, Astrapak, Aveng, Bell Equipment, Clicks, DRDGold, Gold Fields, Group Five, Impala Platinum, Kumba Iron Ore, Murray & Roberts, Pioneer Foods, Rhodes Foods, Sasol, Sun International, Super Group, Torre Industries, Wesizwe Platinum and York Timbers. It is the first such action undertaken by CIPC.

The release of the 20 names by the CIPC follows the JSE’s refusal to allow the companies to use SENS to inform the market of their transgression. In August, when it announced the contravention by unnamed companies, the CIPC instructed the companies to issue individual SENS statements. “Failure to do so will result in the CIPC publishing the names of these companies on the CIPC website,” it said.

The JSE blocked this use of SENS, saying the information being disclosed was not required by the JSE’s listings’ requirements and was not necessarily price-sensitive. The CIPC believes lack of compliance with the Companies Act is a fundamental issue for any company.

The companies attributed the misstatements to bona fide errors and have undertaken to remedy the breach. But they did not explain why the errors were, in some cases, repeated for a number of years. (BD)

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