"Easy access at a reasonable cost"

Companies have always been required to keep registers of their members. The register is a public document which is open for inspection by a member without charge and by any other person upon payment of a fee. When copies are requested they must be provided in exchange for a fee. The provisions dealing with the maintenance of and access to registers are currently found in Chapter 2C of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). According to the Attorney-General these provisions were intended to facilitate "rapid and easy access" by the public to a company's register and to do so "at reasonable cost": Second Reading Speech, First Corporate Law Simplification Bill 1994 (Cth) (House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates (1995) vol HR 199), pp 709, 712. The issue in this case is about the quantum of the fee that can be charged for a copy of the register. Each side engaged senior counsel to put its case. Experts have been called to give their views. Witnesses have been examined and cross-examined. The cost to each party is in the tens of thousands of dollars. So much for easy access at a reasonable cost.