I move amendment No. 107:
In page 78, subsection (2), line 42, to delete "in default".
This is an amendment to section 89. Under section 89, where somebody has failed to comply with a disclosure order, it may be that they will by such failure have no right or interest of any kind whatever in any shares or debentures held by them in the company. In other words, by failing to disclose information they lose their property rights, to the shares in the company. This is a very severe penalty. I have to ask the Minister if it complies with the constitutional provisions concerning the property rights of people in these shares, whether simple non-disclosure should be sufficient to deprive them of rights to shares in a company for which they have paid. However, that is another issue which arises more directly on the section.
The amendment Deputy Barrett and I are proposing here is to extend the category of persons who may apply for relief to the court in respect of a default concerning disclosure of information. At the moment the section provides that a person who fails to provide the information may apply for relief to the court, in which case the court may determine that it will restore their rights to them. It may well happen that a person in default has sold his or her shares in the company to another person between the time they failed to make the disclosure and the time that this comes to the notice of the relevant authorities. In the event of that happening, the relevant authorities may take such action under section 89 which results in the third party, who is innocent in the matter, having his or her rights taken from them under section 89 but a third party, as I read it, does not have the right to apply for relief under section 89 (2). It is only the person in default who has that right. That is why I am suggesting that we remove the words "in default" so that any person may apply to the court for relief against a disability imposed by subsection (1). Obviously, the only people who would apply for relief are people who are suffering a disability, so it is not throwing this remedy open to the whole wide world. Only a very limited number of people would apply anyway. So it seems that the removal of the words "in default" does not open any sluice gate; it simply makes the legislation more effective.