The Supreme Court allowed the Registrar of Companies’ appeal and set aside a District Court judge’s decision to strike out two summonses against System Partners Ltd. It directed the District Court to hear and determine the proceedings; it did not decide whether the company was guilty of the alleged offences.
The summonses concerned alleged failures to file annual returns for 2000 and 2001 within the periods required by section 125 of the Companies Act 1963. The company’s failure to file on time was not disputed. It filed the returns in June 2002, before the prosecution came before the District Court on 25 June, and paid late filing fees of €1,200 for 2000 and €379 for 2001. The ordinary on-time fee was €30.
At the District Court hearing, Judge David Anderson struck out the summonses after concluding that prosecuting the company following payment of the higher fees risked double jeopardy. The High Court refused the Registrar’s application for judicial review of that decision. The company was not represented in the High Court or Supreme Court appeal.
In the judgment delivered on 16 December 2004, Chief Justice Murray said the late filing fees were, in form, an administrative sanction intended to encourage timely filing. They were fixed, automatic consequences of filing late, rather than amounts imposed through a criminal process. He did not decide whether the fees might be a criminal penalty in substance. He said that if they were, the statutory provisions imposing them could be challenged in separate proceedings.
The Court held that double jeopardy concerns prosecution for an offence after a person has already been prosecuted and convicted or acquitted. Payment of late fees had involved no charge, trial, conviction or acquittal. The pending summonses were the only criminal process against the company, so there was no prior criminal process that could bar them.
The Supreme Court concluded that the District Court judge had been wrong in law to strike out the summonses without hearing and determining them. Its order returned the matter for that determination; the Supreme Court made no finding on the merits of the prosecutions.