Registration of company charges - company submitting information to registrar in excess of statutory requirement - court having no power to rectify information beyond correcting errors in particulars or memorandum of satisfaction entered on register

Igroup Ltd v Ocwen (an unlimited company) and others: ChD (Mr Justice Lightman): 23 October 2003

The first to ninth defendants, mortgage lending businesses, assigned their equitable interest in certain mortgages to special purpose vehicles.

Various forms 403b and forms 395 were sent to the tenth defendant, the Registrar of Companies, in accordance with section 395 of the Companies Act 1985.

The forms referred to schedules containing personal information of the defendants' customers going beyond that which was required by the registrar.

On receipt of the forms, the registrar made appropriate entries on the register.

Fearing a possible breach of a duty of confidence, the claimant, an interested party, brought a part 8 claim, supported by the first to ninth defendants, seeking an order under section 404 of the 1985 Act or the court's inherent jurisdiction that the schedules to the forms 395 be removed and that the schedules to the forms 403b be replaced.

The application was opposed by the registrar.

Matthew Shankland (of Weil Gotshal & Manges) for the claimant; Richard Snowden QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the registrar.

Held, dismissing the application, that the power of rectification granted to the court by section 404 was limited to correcting mistakes of omission or commission in the entry of any particular with respect to a mortgage or charge or in a memorandum of satisfaction made by the registrar on the register of charges; that, accordingly, the statutory power did not extend to the particulars entered in a form 395 or a form 403b; and that, in the light of the decision in Exeter Trust Ltd v Screenways Ltd [1991] Gazette 19 June; [1991] BCLC 888, the court had no inherent jurisdiction to rectify.