AI-assisted research summary: The Act transfers most shares of Cable and Wireless Limited to Treasury-nominated persons, stops winding-up petitions based only on low member numbers, and routes certain dividends and indemnity payments as stated.
Cable and Wireless Act 1946 An Act to bring the share capital of Cable and Wireless Limited into public ownership, to provide for the cost of making certain payments to that company in connection with reduction in its charges and for purposes connected with matters aforesaid. On the appointed day all the shares of Cable and Wireless Limited (hereafter in this Act referred to as “the operating company”) other than shares already held on behalf of the Treasury shall, by virtue of this section, be transferred, free of all trusts, liabilities and incumbrances, to such persons respectively as the Treasury may by order nominate, to be held by those persons on behalf of the Treasury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No petition shall be presented for the winding up of the operating company on the ground that the number of its members is less than the number required by law, nor shall any person be liable on that ground as a member of the company for the payment of any of its debts. Any dividends paid by the operating company on or after the appointed day on the shares transferred by this act shall be paid into the Exchequer . . . There shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament such sums as may be required for the purpose of any undertaking given by the Treasury to Cable and Wireless (Holding) Limited for indemnifying that company against liabilities accruing after the appointed day under any agreement entered into by it before the said eighteenth day of April as surety for, or jointly and severally with, the operating company, being liabilities in respect of pensions and other benefits payable on the death or retirement of persons in employment with the operating company, or with any other company or body whose telegraph business was acquired by the operating company, or of the sufficiency or administration of any fund for the provision of such pensions or other benefits. In this Act— the expression “the appointed day” means such day as the Treasury may by order appoint; and . . . This Act may be cited as the Cable and Wireless Act 1946. Ss. 1(2)(3), 2, 4(1)-(3), 5, 6, Schs. 1-3 repealed by Statute Law (Repeals) Act (c. 45), Sch. 1 Pt. IX S. 3(1)–(3) repealed by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1981 (c. 19), Sch. 1 Pt. XII S. 3(5) restricted by British Telecommunications Act 1981 (c. 38, SIF 96), s. 79(1) Words repealed by Statute Law Revision Act 1963 (c. 30) and National Loans Act 1968 (c. 13), Sch. 6 Pt. I The “said eighteenth day of April” means 18.4.1946 1.1.1947 appointed under s. 7(a) by S.R. & O. 1946/2136 (Rev. III, p. 365: 1946; p. 81), art. 7 S. 7(b) repealed by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1978 (c. 45), Sch. 1 Pt. IX