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• Service of Proceedings by Email

Introduction

Readers will be interested to know of a recent case in which the Courts decided that service of an Arbitration Notice by email was valid, even though the management of the Company receiving the Notice were unaware of its existence.

The decision was made by the High Court in the case of Bernuth Lines v High Seas Shipping. The facts were that Bernuth had a website with a "Further Information" email.

Lawyers for High Seas sent Notice of Arbitration by email to this address. Bernuth only intended the information email to be used for cargo bookings but there was no indication on the website that it was only to be used for that purpose.

The email serving the Notice was received by Bernuth's customer services department but they ignored it. The email generated a confirmation of delivery to High Seas' lawyers.

The Arbitration proceedings continued without Bernuth taking part but whenever communications were sent to them at the email address a confirmation of delivery email was generated.

Eventually the Arbitrator issued an award finding against Bernuth. This was sent by email and also by post.

Bernuth then applied to the Court to set aside the Arbitrator's award on the basis that the Arbitration was not properly brought to its attention.

Perhaps surprisingly Mr Justice Clarke found that there was no reason to treat email differently from any other form of communication. The Arbitration Act allows Arbitration Notice to be served by "any effective means".

The Judge upheld the Arbitrator's award as the email serving the Notice had not been rejected but had been properly received by Bernuth. Furthermore, Bernuth only had the one email address.

Lessons that can be learnt from this case include :-

• State on your website whether service of proceedings will be accepted by email.
• Make sure that your system's spam filters do not sift out legal notices so that you do not receive them.
• Automatic receipts generated by your email system should state whether the email address is valid for receipt of proceedings.

Ashfords is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The information in this article is intended to be general information about English law only and not comprehensive. It is not to be relied on as legal advice nor as an alternative to taking professional advice relating to specific circumstances.