Any shareholder shall be entitled to be furnished with a copy of the balance sheet and auditors' report at a charge not exceeding sixpence for every hundred words.
If any copy of a balance sheet which has not been signed as required by this Section is issued, circulated, or published, or if any copy of a balance sheet is issued, circulated, or pub lished without either haying a copy of the auditors' report attached thereto or containing such reference to that report as is required by this Section, the company, and every director, manager, secretary, or other officer of the company who is know ingly a party to the default, shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.
In the case of a banking company registered after the fifteenth day of August eighteen hundred and seyenty-nine- (a) if the company has branch banks beyond the limits of Europe, it shall be sufficient if the auditor is allowed access to such copies of and extracts from the books and accounts of any such branch as have been transmitted to the head office of the company in the United Kingdom ; and (b) the balance sheet must be signed by the secretary or manager (if any), and where there are more than three directors of the company by at least three of those directors, and where there are not more than three directors by all the directors.
Rights of Preference Shareholders, etc., as to Receipt and Inspection of Reports, etc.
•• 114. (1) Holders of preference shares and debentures of a company shall have the same right to receive and inspect the balance sheets of the company and the reports of the auditors and other reports as is possessed by the holders of ordinary shares in the company.
' (2) This Section shall not apply to a private company, nor to a company registered before the first day of July nineteen hundred and eight." By Section S1, the names and addresses of the auditors, if any, must appear on the prospectus of a company. (See BALANCE SHEET. COMPANIES.)