The Irish Companies Registration Office (“CRO”) has recently published its 2020 annual report (available here).

The report acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic led to 2020 being an “extremely challenging” period for the CRO and its stakeholders and resulted in a temporary reduction in the CRO’s services, a suspension of enforcement activity and the introduction of filing deadline extensions in respect of annual returns.

The report notes the culmination of the CRO’s three year digital transformation project which involved the launch of its new online platform in December 2020.

The report also outlines key company law developments including the Companies (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Covid-19) Act 2020 and the introduction of the single step 56 day period for filing annual returns which replaced the old two step procedure.

Some of the key 2020 CRO statistics from the report are compared against the equivalent 2019 statistics in the table below. The reductions seen in some areas run counter to trends in recent years and are likely attributable to the drop off in activity arising from, and the measures adopted by the CRO in response to, the COVID-19 pandemic.