1 Introduction
1. The draft Legislative Reform (Limited Partnerships)
Order 2009 and Explanatory Document were laid before Parliament
by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
(BERR) (now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
(BIS)) on 2 June 2009 under section 14(1) of the Legislative and
Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (LRRA). The Government believes that
under the terms of section 1(2) of the LRRA, adoption of the draft
Order would remove or reduce burdens (arising from uncertainties
about the application of the Limited Partnership Act 1907 (the
1907 Act) and that the draft Order passes the tests derived from
section 3(2) (need for legislation, proportionality, balance,
preservation of protections, rights and freedoms and absence of
constitutional significance). The affirmative resolution procedure
is recommended.
2. The draft Order seeks to introduce two changes
to the 1907 Act, namely making a certificate of registration conclusive
evidence that a limited partnership has been formed on the date
shown; and requiring that all new limited partnerships provide
clarity about their status by including the words 'Limited Partnership',
'LP' or equivalent at the end of the name. Both of these proposals
formed part of a number of recommendations made by the Law Commissions
in their report on Partnership Law in 2003.[1]
3. The current proposals are uncontroversial and
form the remnants of wider changes mooted by the Law Commissions'
report. They were included in an earlier more wide-ranging draft
legislative reform order (LRO) about which a consultation process
was initiated in August 2008. Following that procedure, the conclusion
was 'that the attempt to reform the law comprehensively in one
LRO had been over-ambitious.'[2]
The intention now is to proceed with changes in a piecemeal fashion.[3]
1 Partnership Law - Report on a reference under section
3(1)(e) of the Law Commissions Act 1985: The Law Commission and
the Scottish Law Commission, November 2003. Back
2
Explanatory Document, para 46, p9. Back
3
Ibid, para2, p1 and para 46, p9. Back
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