New modification of the deadlines for formulating and approving the annual accounts of commercial companies from 1 June 2020.
Royal Decree-Law 19/2020, of 26 May, which adopts supplementary measures in the agricultural, scientific, economic, employment and social security and tax fields to palliate the effects of COVID-19, published in the Official State Spanish Gazette (BOE) on 27 May and which came into force on 28 May, once again modifies the deadlines for formulating and approving the annual accounts, and thereby modifies articles 40 and 41 of Royal Decree-Law 8/2020, of 17 March, on urgent extraordinary measures to deal with the economic and social impact of COVID-19.
According to the explanatory memorandum of said regulation, this new modification is made in order to make progress in the reactivation of economic, social, administrative and judicial activity, and to provide legal security to the system, replacing a dynamic and non-uniform period of time (since the beginning of the period, according to the previous regulation, would vary according to the degree of de-escalation in which the Autonomous Community, in whose territory the company has its domicile located), with a certain date, June 1, reactivating the social legal traffic.
Therefore:
1) The period of three months to formulate the annual accounts and other legally obligatory documents will begin on June 1rst and not from the end of the state of alert and therefore ends on 1 September 2020.
Likewise, the formulation of accounts by the governing body of a company during the state of alert will also be valid.
2) Therefore, it is understood, even though this regulation does not provide it, that the deadline to file the Company’s accounting books, minutes book and shareholders book ends on October 1rst, 2020.
3) Furthermore, the ordinary general meeting shall necessarily be held within two months from the end of the period for the formulation of the annual accounts, in order to approve the annual accounts regarding the previous financial year. That is, by November 1rst, 2020 at the latest.
4) Finally, the deadline for depositing the annual accounts with the Commercial Registry remains one month from their approval, which will consequently be on December 1rst, 2020 at the latest.
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