Most companies in PNG are either deregistered from the business registry because of non-compliance with the Companies Act 1997 (most common) or removed from the registry through a voluntary process.
If a company was deregistered within the last 6 years the following steps should be followed to have the company restored:
- You need to lodge your notice of intention to reinstate your company. There are no fees associated with this step. You simply lodge this notice for the approval of the Registrar of Companies;
- With your approval letter, you then publish your notice of intention for reinstatement in either The National or the Post Courier. You meet the fees for publication in the paper. I would recommend you publish with The National as they have a competitive rate compared with the Post Courier. Also you have to have your approved notice of intention to reinstate gazetted or published at the Government printing office.
- Finally, after one month from the date of publication, you now can lodge your application for reinstatement together with all your outstanding annual returns.
However, if a company was deregistered for more than 6 years the Act allows an applicant intending to reinstate the deregistered company to apply to the PNG Courts for a court order to reinstate the company. With a court order in hand the applicant can then complete an application for reinstatement and submitting together with all the outstanding annual returns and the prescribed fees.
The prescribed fee for the
application for reinstatement is PGK750. Each outstanding annual return is PGK150. If you are not sure how many company annual returns you have outstanding, you may need to seek the services of your attorney or accountant to assist you with conducting a company search at the Registrar of Companies office as well as preparing the company annual returns on the prescribed form 22 or form 52.