Shropshire Businesses which change their email addresses as a means of reducing spam should take care following a recent decision in the Commercial Court.
The question at issue was whether the sending of a notice by email to the former email address of the recipient could constitute a proper service of a document (in this case a notice of arbitration) if the email could be shown to have been received, despite the fact that the management of the business had not seen it.
In the view of the Court, if the sender could demonstrate receipt, then the document was validly served.
Gary Richards, head of commercial law at local solicitors Lanyon Bowdler comments, "If you change your business email address, you should have a system in place for ensuring that any correspondence sent to the old address is monitored. So be careful, it’s a form of communication which can have adverse legal consequences if ignored or forgotten."