Ram and McRae launches Companies Act handbook
Ram and McRae Chartered Accountants and Christopher Ram and Associates on Friday launched the second edition of their Companies Act Handbook at the Georgetown Club.
With the first edition having been published by the accounting firm in 1998, the second edition dedicates chapters to issues of the day, such as legislation surrounding oil and gas.
“In addition to the Companies Act, we’ve included chapters on oil and gas, the securities legislation and taxation of companies. The handbook covers from company formation to liquidation in 14 of its chapters and again, of each of these we’ve included a statutory provisions section containing restated extracts of the act itself,” Rakesh Latchana, a partner of Ram and McRae and coauthor of the handbook, stated during his presentation.
Latchana related that the 372-page handbook references 93 cases, as opposed to 17 in the first edition, and carries 19 chapters, compared to just 15 in the first book.
Coauthors Latchana and Ram were also assisted by law students Dexter LindoSmartt, Aquella Best, Twedale Marks, Jason Barnes and Tracy Shamsudeen, who are interns at the firm, as well as Tax Senior at the firm, Melissa Ram.
The interns were lauded by Ram, who called them a “tremendous asset to the firm” and congratulated them for the role they played in getting the book to the publishing stage. He noted that an anti-money laundering handbook will also be released soon.
“…It has taken us 11 years to get here and I hope you will find it worthwhile,” Ram said in his address to the audience.
His presentation made reference to oil and gas legislation and the need for related laws to be understood by those in authority.
“…We have added a chapter on oil and gas. I can say it strikes me, and it almost embarrasses me when you hear people who ought to know better don’t seem to know what the Petroleum Production and Exploration Act says. They don’t know what it says about confidentiality and information. They don’t know what it says about how many blocks any minister can give and what are the conditions for extending any licence or issuing a new agreement,” Ram stated.
“I really am troubled that we don’t seem to know what is in the legislation dealing with exploration and production. And if we don’t understand—if our administrators and our policy makers don’t understand—then they are likely to be overwhelmed by corporate giants, they’re going to negotiate away some of our patrimony, and so we need to be extremely careful,” the attorney said.
He added that he hopes the chapter dedicated to this area in the handbook will be a great aid.
Among those present at the event were the former Caribbean Court of Justice judge Duke Pollard, Appeal Court judge Dawn Gregory, High Court judge Gino Persaud, and the country head of the IDB Sophie Makonnen.
The book will be on sale for $30,000.