Section 820: Interest in shares: general

Companies Act 2006 · 2006 c. 46View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 22: Information about interests in a company's shares

This section applies to determine for the purposes of this Part whether a person has an interest in shares.

In this Part—

a reference to an interest in shares includes an interest of any kind whatsoever in the shares, and
any restraints or restrictions to which the exercise of any right attached to the interest is or may be subject shall be disregarded.

Where an interest in shares is comprised in property held on trust, every beneficiary of the trust is treated as having an interest in the shares.

A person is treated as having an interest in shares if—

he enters into a contract to acquire them, or
not being the registered holder, he is entitled—
to exercise any right conferred by the holding of the shares, or
to control the exercise of any such right.

For the purposes of subsection (4)(b) a person is entitled to exercise or control the exercise of a right conferred by the holding of shares if he—

has a right (whether subject to conditions or not) the exercise of which would make him so entitled, or
is under an obligation (whether subject to conditions or not) the fulfilment of which would make him so entitled.

Persons having a joint interest are treated as each having that interest.

It is immaterial that shares in which a person has an interest are unidentifiable.

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This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.