New Zealand to end mandatory public disclosure of directors' home addresses

The New Zealand government has announced that it will eliminate the requirement for company directors to publicly disclose their home addresses as part of iats planned overhaul of the Companies Act 1998.

The Companies Act states that full names and residential addresses of company directors, among other records, must be kept available for inspection. These records are also kept available to the public through country's Companies Register.

But Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andew Bayly said on Thursday that reforms to scrap this requirement, among other changes, will be introduced to Parliament next year.

"Directors will have the option to remove their home address from the Companies Register which will address significant safety and privacy concerns, while still ensuring that directors are findable and accountable," Bayly said in a statement.

The proposal will also allow company directors to register a different service address online, such as the address for their business or lawyer, The New Zealand Herald reported.

The proposal comes as the mandatory home address disclosure sparked major privacy and safety concerns for company directors, with a survey from the Institute of Directors New Zealand last year revealing that this was the top personal concern of directors in the country.

ACT MP Laura Trask, who campaigned for the removal of this requirement last year, said it was "exciting" that the government has taken on the initiative.

"This will be awesome for small businesses because the complaints we were getting were often from small businesses – your hairdresser, your tradie, with horrible stories of harassment to be honest," Trask said on a video statement.

"So really excited that the government is business-focused, and we are making life easier for you."

Changes to Companies Act

Bayly said they are introducing the reforms to the Companies Act to ensure companies are not held back by "out-of-date laws and onerous red tape."

"The Companies Act is a foundational piece of legislation for our economy. It sets the rules for the birth, life and death of all our companies, of which there are over 730,000," the minister said.

"However, the Act has not been substantially updated in 30 years and as a result aspects of it do not reflect the modern business environment and hamper growth and innovation."

Other changes to be introduced in their planned reforms include the introduction of a unique identification number that will be assigned to company directors for better transparency and tracking.

It also includes changes to improve insolvency law and combat "phoenixing," which refers to the practice where a company goes bankrupt, leaving behind debts, only to reappear as a new entity under a different name.

"These reforms bring the law into the 21st century and enable companies to focus on growing their core business, rather than retrofitting their practices to appease out of date legislation," Bayly said.