The Companies Act 1965 (the Act) states that every company must apply name search with SSM and obtain approval from Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) or the Minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism before a company is incorproated or before changing its company’s name to a new name.
The Section 22 of the Companies Act 1965 states that :
(1) Except with the consent of the Minister, a company shall not be registered by a name that, in the opinion of the Registrar, is undesirable or is a name, or a name of a kind, that the Minister has directed the Registrar not to accept for registration.
(2) The Minister shall cause a direction given by him under subsection (1) to be published in the Gazette.
(3) A limited company shall have “Berhad” or the abbreviation “Bhd.” as part of and at the end of its name.
(4) A private company shall have the word “Sendirian” or the abbreviation “Sdn.” as part of its name, inserted immediately before the word “Berhad” or before the abbreviation “Bhd.” or in the case of an unlimited company, at the end of its name.
(5) It shall be lawful to use and no description of a company shall be deemed inadequate or incorrect by reason of the use of –
(a) the abbreviation “Sdn.” in lieu of the word “Sendirian” contained in the name of a company;
(b) the abbreviation “Bhd.” in lieu of the word “Berhad” contained in the name of a company; or
(c) any of such words in lieu of the corresponding abbreviation contained in the name of a company.
(6) Prior to the registration of –
(a) an intended company or foreign company; or
(b) the change of name of a company or foreign company,
the applicant for registration shall apply in the prescribed form (Form 13A) to the SSM for the availability of the proposed new company’s name. Please refer to Gazetted Words & Names.
By referring to the above, SSM may also be considering an application for a company’s name with the following provisions:
- Prohibitions in the use of names included under the Minister’s direction;
- Any such name is believed or considered undesirable by SSM; and
- Any such name is similar to existing one and may create confusion to the Public.
Check with SSM system now for any dublicate or similar names before application of name search with SSM: Company Name Search
