Edward Cumming is successful in ground-breaking case on service on foreign individuals under the Companies Act 2006

In the first known case to have considered the effect of section 1140 of the Companies Act 2006, the High Court held that the Companies Act 2006 “does indeed provide a new set of provisions which are of broad effect. A director who is resident abroad is entitled to provide an address outside the jurisdiction and, if he does so, permission to serve out of the jurisdiction must be obtained before service can be effected. However, whether he is normally resident outside the jurisdiction or not, if he provides an address for service that is within the jurisdiction then he may be served at that address.”

The new provisions in the Companies Act 2006 (which came into force on 1 October 2009) and the decision in Key Homes and others v Patel are likely to be of great assistance to claimants in disputes before the English courts with an international flavour.

Edward Cumming represented the claimants who successfully opposed the defendant’s application for a declaration that the proceedings had not been properly served (on the grounds that the defendant was resident in Dubai and the claimants had not obtained permission to serve the claim out of the jurisdiction).