Offences

(1) Any company or person who– (a) contravenes this Act, or any Order or Regulation made under this Act, or any direction or requirement given or made by the Supervisor (or person authorised by him under (b) causes any person to enter into, or make an application for entering into, a contract of insurance in contravention of this Act; (c) in purported compliance with a requirement imposed under this Act to supply information or provide an explanation or make a (i) supplies provides an explanation or makes a statement which he knows to be false in a material particular; or (ii) recklessly supplies provides an explanation or makes a statement which is false in a material particular; and (d) where required under section 40 to produce information, books, securities or other documents, destroys, mutilates or falsifies or is privy to the destruction, mutilation or falsification of such information, books, securities or other documents, or makes or is privy to the making of a false entry in such books or documents, or fraudulently parts with or alters or makes an omission in any such books or documents, or is privy to fraudulently parting with, altering or making an omission in any such books, commits an offence unless he can prove that he did not knowingly commit or cause such contravention or omission. Where the offence consists of a default in complying with any provision, direction or requirement, it shall be deemed to be a continuing offence so long as the default continues. (2) Where an offence under this Act or any Regulations made thereunder is committed by a body corporate, every person who at the time of the commission of the offence was a director, manager, secretary, principal representative or other similar officer of the body corporate, or was purporting to act in any such capacity, shall be deemed to have committed that offence unless he proves that the offence was committed without his consent or connivance and that he exercised all such diligence to prevent the commission of the offence as he ought to have exercised, having regard to the nature of his functions in that capacity and to all the circumstances. (3) If any document required by this Act to be signed by any person is false in any particular to the knowledge of any such person who signs it, that person commits an offence. (4) Notwithstanding any limitation on the time for the taking of proceedings which is contained in any Act, summary proceedings for offences against this Act may be commenced at any time within one year from the date on which there comes to the knowledge of the Supervisor evidence sufficient in his opinion to justify a prosecution for the offence. (5) No such proceedings shall be commenced after the expiration of three years from the commission of the offence. (6) For the purposes of this section, a certificate purporting to be signed by the Supervisor as to the date on which that evidence came to his knowledge shall, in any such summary proceedings, be evidence of that date. (7) Any proceedings against a company for an offence under this Act shall be without prejudice to any proceedings for the judicial management, or the winding-up, of the company or of any part of the business of the company which may be taken in respect of the matter constituting the offence.