Part II Establishments and agencies

Miscellaneous and supplemental

37 Service of documents.

(1)

Any notice or other document required under this Part to be served on a person F1... may be served on him—

(a)

by being delivered personally to him; F2...

(b)

by being sent by post to him in a registered letter or by the recorded delivery service at his proper address F3; or

(c)

by being sent by email to the person’s email address.

(2)

For the purposes of section 7 of the M1Interpretation Act 1978 (which defines “service by post”) a letter addressed to a person carrying on or managing an establishment or agency enclosing a notice or other document under this Act shall be deemed to be properly addressed if it is addressed to him at the establishment or agency.

(3)

Where a notice or other document is served as mentioned in subsection (1)(b), the service shall, unless the contrary is proved, be deemed to have been effected on the third day after the day on which it is sent.

F4(3A)

A notice or other document sent to a person by email is, unless the contrary is proved, to be treated as having been served on the working day immediately following the day on which it was sent.

(4)

Any notice or other document required to be served on a body corporate or a firm shall be duly served if it is served on the secretary or clerk of that body or a partner of that firm.

(5)

For the purposes of this section, and of section 7 of the M2Interpretation Act 1978 in its application to this section, without prejudice to subsection (2) above, the proper address of a person shall be—

(a)

in the case of a secretary or clerk of a body corporate, that of the registered or principal office of that body;

(b)

in the case of a partner of a firm, that of the principal office of the firm; and

(c)

in any other case, the last known address of the person.

F5(6)

A person’s (P’s) email address for the purposes of this section is—

(a)

an email address identified for the time being by P, or by a person who manages an establishment or agency carried on by P, as an address for contacting P, or

(b)

if an email address is not so identified, an email address which the person serving the notice or other document believes is used by P.

For the purposes of this subsection, a person “identifies” an email address by providing it to a registration authority or publishing it.

(7)

In subsection (3A) “working day” means a day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 in England and Wales.