Draft Company (amendment) Law, 2018 gets cabinet nod

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DHAKA, Nov 26, 2018 (BSS) – The cabinet today approved in principle the
draft of “The Company (amendment) Law, 2018” incorporating a provision
allowing formation of a “one-man company”.

“The proposed law defines a ‘one-man company’ as a company to be formed
with one person,” Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam told reporters
after the regular cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

The cabinet secretary said the proposed amendment to the company law
brought a new concept which was unfamiliar to the country’s business arena so
far.

“This concept doesn’t exist in our law, but different countries of the
world are following it,” he said.

Alam said the law has been proposed to bring a “one-man company” under the
purview of the legal framework.

In the existing law, he said, there is a provision for formation of a
company by keeping limited its members to 50 excluding the persons appointed
to the company.

“But this provision will not be applicable to the constitution of a “one-
man company, and in the case of such a company, it can be formed with one
person,” the cabinet secretary added.

Alam said the cabinet also gave the final approval to the draft of “The
Bangladesh Film and Television Institute (Amendment) Law, 2018,” aimed at
further flourishing mass media like film and television.

Alam said in the previous definition, film means celluloid, analogue,
digital or it made in other medium. But, in the proposed law, the term
“analogue” has been dropped from the definition of the film, he said.

The cabinet secretary said the draft law proposed to reduce the number of
members of the governing body of the institute to four to six from existing
five to seven.

Of them, a teacher of the institute and a filmmaker would be nominated by
the government to ensure involvement of teachers of the institute and eminent
personalities related to the film industry.

A “media personality” instead of a “journalist” to be nominated by the
government will also be a member of the governing council, Alam said.

Besides, he said, a representative of the mass media instead of private
media to be appointed by the government will also be a member of the
governing council of the institute.

About the tenure of the governing council of the institute, the cabinet
secretary said the council members will be appointed for a two-year term
instead of three years of the existing law.

Meanwhile, the cabinet also gave a nod to a proposal for celebrating
December 12 as the “Digital Bangladesh Day” instead of the “National
Information & Communication Technology Day”.

At the outset of today’s meeting, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia
Chowdhury handed over a photograph on a 200-year-old floating “Rice Haat” to
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The photograph collected by Matia Chowdhury is a floating “Haat of Rice” in
the Sandhya River at Banaripara of Barishal and it is said to be the largest
“Rice Haat” in the region.