South Africa – Availability of Companies and Intellectual Property Commission Files- Status on file transition to a new bulk storage Facility

In terms of a Notice[1] issued by Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (“CIPC”), the handover project of moving 7.2 million Companies, Close Corporation, Trade Marks, Design, Copyright and Cooperatives files to the new storage facility was completed on 26 November 2021. CIPC has advised that official files will be unavailable for a period of 3-4 months while the new service provider takes the files onto its records to label and capture same on their systems for recording and retrieval purposes. Due to the large volume of files, CIPC has further advised that there will be delays in the retrieval of files until the end of the March 2022 (i.e., end of the financial year). It is anticipated that the complete capturing of all 7.2 million files will be completed at the end of March 2022.

In light of the above, CIPC requires that the request for Paper Based Disclosures be lodged via the “enquiries portal’ on the CIPC website with the ticket being directed to Companies and Close Corporation Paper Based Disclosures. Enquires via email will no longer be considered. Only one request per ticket can be submitted per entity and re-submissions are not allowed to prevent duplication on the CIPC system. In addition, CIPC has not allowed perusal of files by practitioners (until further notice).

This transition has caused further delays in the progress of applications, as in many cases, attorneys wait months for files to be retrieved and dealt with.

To download The Notice 62 of 2021 from the CIPC website, click here CIPC :: Notices.

[1] Notice 62 of 2021 issued by Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.