Trade Registry Translation for Australia

Matching the fields to their ASIC counterparts

The Australian side looks in your document for the fields it reads in the record held by ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, where companies are identified by an ACN, an Australian Company Number. Submitted together, the certificate of activity and the TTSG announcement supply what an ASIC summary supplies: whether the company is active, where it is registered and who runs it. Rendering those fields in the terms of Australian company law reduces the objection; a short covering note explaining that the document is the Türkiye equivalent is useful too, because a recipient expecting a single registry summary needs to see two documents doing that job between them.

The false-equivalent trap: an A.Ş. is not a “Pty Ltd”

A common error is to translate the abbreviation for the company type into an Australian one. Writing A.Ş. as “Ltd”, or a Limited Şirketi as “Pty Ltd”, equates the company with a different legal form, and these types do not map onto one another. In translation the abbreviation is left as it stands, with a bracketed explanation where one is needed. Translate the type and you create a mistaken legal expectation on the other side; treating a Pty Ltd and a Turkish limited company as one and the same can mislead as to the rules on capital and liability.

The field setting out the objects of the company calls for particular care. What the Turkish document records there answers to the information that marks out the limits of a company’s activity in the ASIC record, so it has to be carried across without widening or narrowing its scope. Sector-specific terms are given their established counterparts in Australian commercial usage, but without distorting the meaning; where the document carries an activity code of the NACE sort, the code is an identifier and is left as it stands rather than converted into the other country’s coding system. Interpreting an item of activity freely can make the field the company is authorised to work in look different from what it is, and raise a false expectation on the other side.

The NAATI stamp, capital and MERSIS

A translation put before an official procedure in Australia must be made by a NAATI-certified translator and must carry the NAATI stamp; without it the translation is not accepted. The translator’s number and the language direction shown on the stamp have to be visible in the translation. The amount of capital and the currency (TL) stay exactly as they are and are not converted into an Australian dollar equivalent. The QR code on the certificate of activity is marked with the notes [QR code] and [electronic verification]; the MERSIS number and the trade registry number are carried across exactly. The announcement date and issue number on the TTSG announcement are kept as well.

Telling the current position from past changes

The certificate of activity shows the company as it stands today, whereas gazette announcements are a chronological record. When an Australian buyer or authority asks for a current record, submitting the most recent registration announcement together with a currently dated certificate of activity is more complete than sending a single old copy, and reduces the chance of further documents being requested. Which announcements, by date, are to be translated should be settled at the outset: missing an announcement that records a relevant change leaves the file incomplete, while translating more old announcements than are needed drives up the cost. By keeping the date and issue number of each announcement, the translation makes it plain which change was registered when.

The signature circular and the integrity of the stamp

The signature circular, which shows the signing authority of the authorised representative, is a document apart from the certificate of activity and the gazette announcement; an Australian recipient may ask for it too when confirming a contract or a power to act, and that document may likewise need to be translated under a NAATI stamp. In a multi-page document the order of the pages is preserved and every page is presented with the stamp intact; a loose or unstamped page opens the integrity of the document to argument. Translating the names and titles of individuals consistently across the two documents lets the recipient match up the authority without effort. Watch the following points before delivery:

• Make certain the translation carries the NAATI stamp.
• Check that the type abbreviation has not been turned into a “Pty Ltd/Ltd” equivalent.
• Verify that the capital has been left in TL; obtain the apostille before the translation.

Australia is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention; confirm the current position from the official HCCH list. You can see the level of certification other documents need on our document types page, look at the cost on our pricing page and upload your document to request a quotation. Translations are handled from our single office in Ankara Kızılay. Institutional practice can change, so verify the position from an official source before you apply.