How Do You Check Company Name Availability In Singapore?
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Suppose you are a business owner and intend to enter into an important transaction with another company registered in Singapore. In that case, it may be necessary to verify the legitimacy of your counterparty or the Singapore company name search.
Such cases may include acquiring assets from a business, entering into an important contract (for example, if your business delivers goods on a deferred payment basis, or, conversely, prepays for the delivery of goods), investing in a business, or entering into a partnership or establishing a new joint venture with a business partner.
Why check counterparty data, and how to check if the company name is taken?
It is essential to conduct preliminary due diligence of your counterparty before making transactions with him; this is because some enterprises may turn out to be unreliable and do not fulfill their obligations properly. Or worse, the business may be fraudulent or intent on using the transaction as a means of money laundering or other illegal activity; this can lead to serious economic and reputational losses for your business. Moreover, you can find information about the company thanks to the Singapore company name check.
Singapore company name availability offers:
- Basic information verification through the Singapore company register ACRA
- Obtaining detailed information (Business Profile) for a company from the ACRA register
- Corporate Compliance and Financial Profile
- Insolvency search
- Watchlists CASE
- MAS Watchlists
- Checking of licenses of financial institutions
- Checking of registered trademarks and patents
Of course, it is unnecessary to perform all of the listed checks for every transaction or for every counterparty that your business encounters, as some may not be directly relevant to the situation.
Information verification through the Singapore company register ACRA
For a private limited company name search, basic information about any Singapore company is available in the ACRA directory for free. The information available includes:
- Full name of the legal entity registered with ACRA
- The unique number of the legal entity of the company (UEN)
- Business status (for example, active, deregistered, liquidated, or terminated)
- Legal address
- The type of activity in which the company is officially engaged
- Date of the last filing of annual and financial statements.
Suppose you cannot find the legal entity you are interested in at the specified registered address or suspect that it could have moved its location without updating the relevant data in ACRA. In that case, you should exercise caution and perform additional checks.
Obtaining detailed information (Business Profile) for a company from the ACRA register. If you need additional data, including the company’s current structure and data on its members, you need to order an extract from the ACRA register.
Private limited company name search from ACRA. Procedure:
- Find the name of the legal entity in the ACRA Registry by searching the BizFile website. Alternatively, you can access the catalog through the ACRA On the Go mobile app.
- Order a Business Profile for this company by paying S $5.50. The statement will instantly come to the specified email address. Please note that the link in the email to the purchased file will expire seven days after the purchase.
The business profile contains additional information, including:
- Business entity registration date
- Its economic activity is indicated in 2 main types
- Information about officials (directors, secretary) and business owners of a business entity (shareholders)
- Information about the amount of the paid-up capital.
Corporate Compliance and Financial Profile. If you are concerned about the records of compliance and the financial condition of a business, you can purchase a Corporate Compliance Profile and a Financial Profile of that business; this includes information that can be found in the business profile, as well as information about:
- Does the business entity comply with its legal requirements?
- Key highlights of an entity’s financial statements, such as its balance sheet, profit and loss, and cash flow statement
- The financial condition of an economic entity in terms of liquidity, profitability, operational efficiency, and solvency
- Auditors’ report on financial statements;
- The procedure for buying a corporate profile is similar to buying a business profile, but the cost will be higher, namely $50.
How do you check company name availability in Singapore? To do this, you need to go to the official ACRA website and type the name into the search. You can carry out a new company name search to select your company’s name or search for information about the company you are interested in on this site.
Checking registered trademarks and patents
After checking the Singapore company name availability, you can check the registered trademarks. How to check if the company name is taken? If you want to check the name of the company, then it is done on the ACRA website.
If the business is related to existing trademarks and patents, you should check if such trademarks and patents have been duly registered with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS). This check may be relevant if, for example, you are interested in acquiring or forming a joint venture with a certain commercial entity because it has submitted that it has a specific trademark or patent.
You can search the IP2SG website. It is as easy to do as a Singapore company name search to check if such trademarks and patents are registered with IPOS.
For trademarks registered in Singapore, the corresponding entry in the search results will include the following information:
- The brand itself and the Singapore company name check
- Trademark status (e.g., registered)
- Trademark validity period
- Description of the trademark features
- Indication of the type of goods and services for which the trademark is used
- Details of the current applicant or owner, including their name, UEN, country of registration, and address.
For patents, the corresponding entry in the search results will include the following information:
- Invention title
- Patent filing date
- Details of the current applicant or owner, including name, UEN, country of registration, and address
- Information about the inventor, including their name, address, and country of residence
- Specifications, including drawings of the invention and its description.
It is highly recommended that you hire a lawyer to conduct background checks on behalf of the companies you plan to do business with. One reason for this is that some of the aforementioned checks require a certain level of legal knowledge to navigate sites easily.
For example, when checking registered trademarks and patents on the IP2SG website, you must understand how trademarks and patents work in Singapore. There may also be other checks and new company name searches relevant to your specific circumstances that are not generally known. A professional lawyer will be able to ensure that all necessary checks are carried out to verify the legitimacy of your counterparty before you proceed with the transaction.
