Why must a Registered Society be a Co-op or Bencom?

That stalwart co-operator, formerly of Shared Interest, Mark Hayes, contacted me today with a query about how the statutory requirements (bona fide co-operative or bencom) for the registration of an industrial and provident (aka co-operative and community benefit) society came about.


That caused me to dig out an old paper of mine from 2001 which discussed the history and referred to some of the sources on that one. The key vital definition was a pragmatic addition, made only in 1939, to a law already 80 plus years old. This was done to deal with the use of societies for investment frauds because they were not subject to the same prospectus disclosure requirements as companies when issuing shares.


Here's the article in the interests of dissemination to interested lawyers and co-operators. Some of the footnotes lead in to fuller materials e.g. Hansard and key Government reports that led to the change. Sorry about the quality of the document but I had to scan it in as the Journal has not yet gone that far back with its archiving.

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