(1)Subject to the provisions of this section, no person shall be capable of being appointed a director of a company which is subject to this section if at the time of his appointment he has attained the age of seventy.
(2)Subject as aforesaid, a director of a company which is subject to this section shall vacate his office at the conclusion of the annual general meeting commencing next after he attains the age of seventy:
Provided that acts done by a person as director shall be valid notwithstanding that it is afterwards discovered that his appointment had terminated by virtue of this subsection.
(3)Where a person retires by virtue of the last foregoing subsection, no provision for the automatic reappointment of retiring directors in default of another appointment shall apply; and if at the meeting at which he retires the vacancy is not filled it may be filled as a casual vacancy.
(4)Subsection (2) of this section shall not apply to a' director who is in office at the commencement of this Act so as to terminate his then appointment before the conclusion of the third annual general meeting commencing after the commencement of this Act, but shall apply so as to terminate it at the conclusion of that meeting if he has attained the age of seventy before the commencement of the meeting.
(5)Nothing in the foregoing provisions of this section shall prevent the appointment of a director at any age, or require a director to retire at any time, if his appointment is or was made or approved by the company in general meeting, but special notice shall be required of any resolution appointing or approving the appointment of a director for it to have effect for the purposes of this subsection and the notice thereof given to the company and by the company to its members must state or must have stated the age of the person to whom it relates.
(6)A person reappointed director on retiring by virtue of subsection (2) of this section, or appointed in place of a director so retiring, shall be treated, for the purpose of determining the time at which he or any other director is to retire, as if he had become director on the day on which the retiring director was last appointed before his retirement; but, except as provided by this subsection, the retirement of a director out of turn by virtue of the said subsection (2) shall be disregarded in determining when any other directors are to retire.
(7)In the case of a company first registered after the beginning of the year nineteen hundred and forty-seven, this section shall have effect subject to the provisions of the company's articles; and in the case of a company first registered before the beginning of that year—
(a)this section shall have effect subject to any alterations of the company's articles made after the beginning thereof; and
(b)if at the beginning thereof the company's articles contained provision for retirement of directors under an age limit or for preventing or restricting appointments of directors over a given age this section shall not apply to directors to whom that provision applies.
(8)A company shall be subject to this section if it is not a private company or if, being a private company, it is the subsidiary of a body corporate incorporated in the United Kingdom which is neither a private company nor a company registered under the law relating to companies for the time being in force in Northern Ireland and having provisions in its constitution which would, if it had been registered in Great Britain, entitle it to rank as a private company; and for the purposes of any other section of this Act which refers to a company subject to this section, a company shall be deemed to be subject to this section notwithstanding that all or any of the provisions thereof are excluded or modified by the company's articles.