Photo: Dr David Fabri discussing company law reforms with Dr Stephen Attard and the Official Receiver, Dr Ingrid Hamilton, during the recent conference.
One simply cannot escape companies. It would take a bold lawyer to ignore company law because most business in Malta is carried out by the 120,000 companies registered here. The annual company law conference was once again held in the wonderful ambience of the Valletta Campus and as usual involved several members of the Faculty of Laws. For more than twenty years, Dr David Fabri, now visiting senior lecturer with the Faculty and member of the Chamber’s Malta Law Academy, has been taking the lead in organising this annual event. This year’s theme was “Maltese Company Law - New Perspectives, New Laws, New Challenges”, which reflected the various changes and novel compliance and other challenges that corporate lawyers and officials have to face. It also highlighted the fact that all the speakers were new to the conference.
In the first part, the audience heard the traditional opening policy speech from the President of the Chamber of Advocates, Dr Peter Fenech, and a welcome address from Judge Dr Ian Spiteri Bailey who currently heads the commercial section of the Civil Court. Dr Fabri himself addressed the various changes and developments in the corporate world in Malta and overseas since the last conference held in November 2022, which had focussed largely on dissolution and insolvency issues. Questions were asked whether compliance obligations have gone too far and whether as a result company law was losing its original mission and focus.
In the second part, Dr Ingrid Hamilton, the Official Receiver, spoke on the recently adopted insolvency laws, while Dr Alessia Carbone described the new requirements resulting from international sanctions which in Malta are administered by the Sanctions Monitoring Board, of which she forms part. Dr Stephen Attard gave his detailed views on reforms he would like to see to the Companies Act, Dr Antoine Naudi analysed a very recent and interesting wrongful trading case, while Dr Patrick Buhagiar delivered a talk on the new challenges and opportunities of AI in the context of companies. Dr Gabriella Bray, the APS plc company secretary, addressed the increasing compliance obligations and risks being faced by company secretaries.
The Companies Act came into force on the 1 January 1995; that is 28 years ago. It should be no surprise that a number of areas have been identified for improvement and reform. New court decisions which help to further develop company law principles too deserve to be noted and analysed. Preparations are now already underway for the next annual conference scheduled for November 2024.
