Article 10 Service of documents
Any notice or other document which is required by these Rules to be served on any person may be served personally on that person or sent to him by post at his usual or last known residence or place of business in England or Wales; in the case of a company, such a letter may also be addressed to the company at its registered office in England or Wales (if it has such a registered office).
If the person to be served is acting by a solicitor, the notice or other document may be served by delivering it, or sending it by post, to the solicitor’s address for service.
Where there is inscribed on the writing paper of the person to be served with a notice or other document or on the writing paper of his solicitor (where the person to be served is acting by a solicitor) a document exchange box number, and that person or his solicitor (as the case may be) has not indicated in writing to the person serving the document that he is unwilling to accept service through a document exchange, service of the notice or document may be effected by leaving the notice or document addressed to the numbered box of that person or his solicitor at the document exchange in question or at a document exchange which transmits documents every business day to that document exchange; and any document which is left at a document exchange in accordance with this paragraph shall, unless the contrary is proved, be deemed to have been served on the second business day following the day on which it is left.
In this rule—
“document exchange” means any document exchange for the time being approved by the Lord Chancellor for the purposes of the service of documents under Order 65 rule 5(1) of the Rules of the Supreme Court 1965f1;
“business day” means a day other than a day which is to be excluded for the purposes of reckoning a period of 7 days or less as referred to in rule 1(3); and
“solicitor” includes a body corporate which is recognised by the Council of the Law Society under section 9 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985f2 (a “recognised body”) and, in the case of a recognised body, the reference in paragraph (2) above to the solicitor’s address for service shall be construed as a reference to the address specified by the recognised body as its address for the purposes of the proceedings relating to the application for a preparatory hearing under section 29(4) of the Act and/or the order for such a hearing under section 29(1) of the Act (including an address specified for the general purposes of the criminal proceedings in relation to which the application or order for a preparatory hearing is made), or, in the absence of such a specified address, to its registered office.