Notice to shareholders that information is available on the company’s website

Companies can make information available to their shareholders on their websites. When new information is added, the company must inform shareholders that it is available and how they can access it.

Consent

When the company makes information available on the website, it must check which shareholders:

• consent to receiving an e-mail giving details of how to access the new information
• have opted to receive a letter telling them about the new information on the website
• have opted out of accessing information on the website altogether; and
• did not respond to the invitation, so the company is relying on their deemed consent. In this case, the company may not have an e-mail address for service of documents on the shareholder, so will have to send the notification by post.

You can only send the notification that information is on the website to those shareholders who have consented (or are deemed to have consented) to using the website for this purpose.

Posting information on the website

Make sure that the instructions in the notice are clear as to how shareholders can access the documents or information. Provide links in the e-mail to make it as easy as possible for the shareholders.

If the document is a statutory notice or information that must be provided to the shareholders by law, it must be available on the website for the whole notice period, e.g. notice of a general meeting and documents required to be disclosed to the shareholders in advance of the meeting. If there is no statutory period, the documents/information must be available for at least 28 days. The relevant starting date is the date on which the shareholders were notified, or the date on which the documents/information became available on the website (if later). See our Deemed Service Times for Company Communications Summary for when notices are served generally.

The documents/information must be in a form that can be read by the naked eye and is capable of being printed out or copied.