KUALA LUMPUR (April 25): The Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) expects more companies to utilise the new corporate rehabilitation framework introduced by the Companies (Amendment) Act 2024, which came into force on April 1.

SSM director (corporate compliance division) Norhaiza Jemon said the new Act would facilitate companies facing financial difficulties, and support economic recovery and competitiveness.

“The new rehabilitation framework is much awaited by companies facing financial difficulties. With the new amendment, we expect that they will be able to address their issues better,” she said during the SSM Insight: The Companies (Amendment) Act 2024 briefing here on Thursday.

The Companies (Amendment) Act 2024 has 31 clauses and four policy clusters.

The first policy cluster is widening the application of corporate rescue mechanism under Corporate Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) and Judicial Management (JM), while the second is strengthening the corporate rehabilitation framework through enhancement of provisions relating to the scheme of arrangement or compromise, as well as enhancement of provisions on CVA and JM.

The third cluster is strengthening the beneficial ownership (BO) reporting framework and the last cluster focuses on enhancing corporate governance and practices.

Elaborating on the third cluster, Norhaiza said the new obligations imposed on the beneficial owner, whereby there is an obligation to notify the company that he/she is a beneficial owner and an obligation to notify the company when he/she ceases to be a beneficial owner.

“We are requiring companies to submit the BO information within the next three months, until June, and that will be an immediate impact of the proposal with regard to enhancing the BO framework,” she said, adding that more than 600,000 active companies need to adhere to the new Act.

“The improvement to the BO reporting framework was implemented after taking into account the latest international developments to combat money laundering, terrorism financing, bribery and tax evasion,” she added.

Meanwhile, SSM chief executive officer Datuk Nor Azimah Abdul Aziz said the recently promulgated Companies Act (Amendment) 2024 reflects SSM’s unwavering dedication to modernising regulatory frameworks, enhancing corporate governance standards, and promoting sustainable business practices that foster innovation, competitiveness, as well as investor confidence.