How to Check if a Company is Registered in Nigeria
HOW TO CHECK IF A COMPANY IS REGISTERED IN NIGERIA
The question of how to know if a company is registered in Nigeria is one often asked by intending individuals or corporate bodies looking to do business or venture into an agreement with another company claiming legality. Of course you know that in the eyes of the law any company that is not registered in Nigeria with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) does not exist.
Another instance why you may need to verify the registration of a company with CAC is for yourself. Some CAC Agents forge CAC certificates for their clients. So if you have contracted someone to register a company for you, there is need to check by yourself to be sure that the certificate you are given is genuine.
So today, I will give you a quick guide on how to check if a company is registered in Nigeria or not. Or if the certificate you have is fake or genuine. It is important you learn this in order not to fall prey to scammers.
A Registered Company
For a corporate body or form of business to do carry out services in Nigeria, it has to register with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). CAC was created under the Companies and Allied Matters Act of Nigeria. To successfully register a company, the company must have to fulfilall the necessary requirements of the commission. Some of them include providing details of the company such as; Name of the company, the address, directors, shareholders, shareholding formula etc. It also have to pay the filing fees.
Upon the company’s registration by the commission, and after fulfilling all the requirements, the CAC will issue a certificate of Incorporation to the company. The certificate will contain the name of the company and its status (a private or public company), and RC Number unique to that company. It also shows the date and the seal of the Registrar-General of the commission.
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How to check if a company is registered
CAC is aware that people commit different frauds by claiming to be companies whereas they are not. So to mitigate against this and protect members of the public they launched a public search portal. The portal is on CAC website and is accessible by members of he public. Anyone can easily visit it to confirm the registration or status of any company claiming registration in Nigeria.
To check the registration of a company, just follow these easy steps:
Step 1: Visit the CAC’s website http://services.cac.gov.ng/
Step 2: Scroll down the site and click on “Public Search”
And Step 3: Insert the RC Number of the company you wish to search. And in a situation where you don’t know the RC Number then insert the full name of the company in the search box and click on “Search”
If the company is registered, the result will display the full company name, RC number, and office address.
As stated above the process to check if a company is registered is very easy and fast. You don’t need to make any payment for it. Anyone can access it. It is a public information. And it can be done in 5 minutes. The next time someone request to see your CAC documents, just be sure they may be doing a background check on you.
For a company to enjoy legal backing, it must be duly registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission. It is important to conduct due diligence before engaging the service or transacting with a company to prevent being scammed. If a company is not registered, no result will appear upon search.
Conclusion
As you can see it is easy to find out if any company has a CAC registration or not. So it will be naive to go into any serious transaction without first checking if the company at least has a presence with CAC. Since it does not cost anything to check why will you want to ignore.
It will equally be foolish of you to think that you can fool anyone with this. If you are yet to register your company with CAC go and do it.Why do you need to do that? People will easily check. And if you are not it can cost you some real deals.
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