All companies (including external companies) and close corporations are required by law to file their annual returns with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) on an annual basis, within a prescribed time period. The purpose for the lodging of such annual returns is to confirm whether a registered business is still in business/trading, or if it will be in business in the near future. Therefore, if annual returns are not filed within the prescribed time period, the assumption is that the business is inactive, and as such CIPC will start the deregistration process to remove the business from its active records. The legal effect of the deregistration process is that the juristic personality is withdrawn and the company or close corporation ceases to exist.

The company or close corporation may be re-instated after it was deregistered by the lodging of a Notice of Re-instatement. The request for re-instatement may be submitted by

•  the company or close corporation,
•  its duly authorised representative or
• any third party.

Upon the processing of the re-instatement application, the legal persona is re-instated, and all outstanding annual returns must be filed for the re-instatement to become effective. If you have any queries relating to the status of your business entity do hesitate to contact us for professional advice in this regard.