Chapter 2 of Part IV of the Companies Act, 1990, which deals specifically with disclosure of holdings in public limited companies, is designed to promote greater disclosure, so that all parties interested in a particular public limited company can act on the basis of the availability of the greatest amount of information. The disclosure requirements in themselves are not particularly onerous.
Section 79 of the Act contains both civil and criminal sanctions for failure to comply. Section 79 (1) provides that parties who fail to comply with the relevant disclosure requirements are liable to criminal sanctions. However, it is possible that certain parties would be prepared to run the risk of prosecution and payment of a fine if, in the long run, they derived benefit from their actions.
The civil sanction contained in section 79 (3), which provides that a person who has failed to make the requisite disclosure cannot enforce any right or interests which he may have, by action or legal proceedings, is considered to be an important buttress to ensuring that the disclosure requirements in this Part of the Companies Act, 1990 are complied with, and I do not propose to repeal them.
