One of the first posts on this blog dealt with establishing service of documents by email, tweet or facebook message (link).

Now, service of a bankruptcy notice by email has been held to be effective.  The relevant case is The Council of the New South Wales Bar Association v Archer (Federal Magistrates Court, Lloyd-Jones FM, 13 February 2012)(link).

It is surprising that an individual can be served with a bankruptcy notice by email, given that the recipient who fails to comply with the notice commits an act of bankruptcy.

The decision arises out of regulation 16.01(e) of the Bankruptcy Regulations 1996 (link) which permits a document to be “sent by facsimile transmission or another mode of electronic transmission”.  The Court surveyed the authorities and found none that permitted service by email.  Instead the Court relied on earlier authorities dealing with facsimile transmission.

The Court dealt with a number of issues raised by email service:

1. The requirement that the document be left “at the last known address of the debtor” imposed by r16.01(c) could be met when the address being used was an email address, and it did not matter that use of the email address was not tied to any fixed physical location as a street address or fax machine location might be;
2. If the email “bounced back” then service would not be effective;
3. Evidence on behalf of the debtor to the effect that he or she did not receive the document does not negate service, in the absence of the document being returned undelivered or other evidence of non-delivery:  being the same rule that applies to service by post.  Evidence of “non receipt” is not relevant;
4. The email account need not belong to the debtor provided there is evidence that the debtor checks the account.  In the Archer decision, the account belonged to the debtor’s spouse and was checked about once a week by the debtor.

The decision is consistent with Austin J’s judgment in Austar Finance Group Pty Ltd v Campbell which is referred to in my earlier post, and it will be interesting to see if superior courts follow the Archer decision.

Regards

Mark