Company Law Enforcement Act, 2001

Special provisions applying where default in delivery of documents to registrar of companies.

66.—(1) Where the registrar of companies has reasonable grounds for believing that a person is in default in the delivery, filing or making to the registrar of a return or similar document required under the Companies Acts, the registrar may deliver to the person or, where the person believed to be in default is a company, to an officer of the company, a notice in the prescribed form stating—

(a) that the person or company has failed to deliver, file or make a specified return or similar document to the registrar under a specified section of the Companies Acts,

(b) that the person to whom the notice is delivered may, during a period of 21 days beginning on the date of the notice,

(i) remedy the default, and

(ii) make to the registrar a payment of a prescribed amount which shall be accompanied by the notice,

and

(c) that a prosecution of the person to whom the notice is delivered will not be instituted during the period specified in the notice, or, if the default is remedied and the payment specified in the notice is made during that period, at all.

(2) Where a notice is delivered under subsection (1)—

(a) a person to whom it applies may, during the period specified in the notice, make to the registrar the payment specified in the notice, accompanied by the notice,

(b) the registrar may receive the payment and issue a receipt for it, and no payment so received shall in any circumstances be recoverable by the person who made it, and

(c) a prosecution in respect of the alleged default shall not be instituted in the period specified in the notice, and, if the default is remedied and the payment specified in the notice is made during that period, no prosecution in respect of the alleged default shall be instituted at all.

(3) In a prosecution for an offence to which this section applies, the onus of showing that a payment pursuant to a notice under this section has been made shall lie on the defendant or accused.

(4) All payments made to the registrar under this section shall be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer in such manner as the Minister for Finance may direct.