DICA taking steps to clean up the Myanmar companies register?

The Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (“DICA”) has just released – on 27 August 2015 – a Notification requiring all companies registered in Myanmar to contact DICA to confirm that the company is currently carrying on business. The Notification has been published on DICA’s website here.

The Notification gives a deadline of 14 September 2015 for provision of confirmation to DICA and states that DICA may take “appropriate action in accordance with the Myanmar Companies Act” against any companies that fail to provide confirmation. The Companies Act gives DICA the power (subject to a notification process) to strike off and dissolve any company that is not carrying on business. The language of the Notification therefore indicates that DICA may be looking to identify defunct companies in order to ‘clean up’ the register of companies by undertaking a large scale striking off exercise. Given that the timeframe for providing confirmation to DICA is little more than two weeks, we strongly recommend that all Myanmar-registered companies urgently action a response to this Notification to avoid any potential negative consequences of failing to respond.

The Notification states that confirmation can be provided to the main DICA office in Yangon or to any branch office by “email, phone, fax or post”. Contact details of each office are set out in the Notification. We understand that DICA’s preference is to receive confirmation by way of a letter, which letter should:

    Be printed on company letterhead and signed by a director of the company;
    Clearly state the company’s full name, registration number and registered address;
    Otherwise simply state that the company confirms that it is currently carrying on business;
    Attach a copy of the company’s Certificate of Registration or, failing that, it’s most recent Form XXVI registered list of directors; and
    Be delivered to DICA by fax or email.

Ordinarily, we would suggest that it is preferable to hand deliver any notice or letter to DICA so that a copy can be stamped as received – and this is still possible in relation to responses to the Notification. However, we anticipate that the Notification will create a rush of companies contacting DICA and no doubt DICA has expressed a preference to receive confirmation letters by fax or email to ease the administrative burden at its end.

If you need any assistance with this or other corporate filing requirements, feel free to contact Jean Loi (Jean.Loi@VDB-Loi.com ), who leads our corporate secretarial team, or your regular contact at VDB Loi.