BAILII [Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Search] [Feedback]

Northern Irish Legislation

You are here:  BAILII >> Databases >> Northern Irish Legislation >> BANKRUPTCY AMENDMENT ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1929

[Index] [Table] [Search] [Notes] [Noteup] [Previous] [Next] [Download] [Help]


BANKRUPTCY AMENDMENT ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1929 - SECT 26

Bankrupt or arranging debtor failing to keep proper accounts.

26.(1) Any person adjudged bankrupt and any person who shall have presented a
petition for arrangement with his creditors, in pursuance of the Act of 1857
as amended by the Act of 1872, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour, and,
on conviction thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned for any term not
exceeding two years, if, having been engaged in any trade or business during
any period in the two years immediately preceding the date of the presentation
of a bankruptcy petition against or by him, or a petition for arrangement with
his creditors by him, he has not kept proper books of account throughout that
period and throughout any further period in which he was so engaged between
the date of the presentation of the petition and the date of adjudication of
bankruptcy, or the date on which his proposed arrangement was approved by
the court, as the case may be, or has not preserved all books of account so
kept:

Provided that a person who has not kept or has not preserved such books of
account shall not be convicted of an offence under this section

(a)if his unsecured liabilities at the date of the presentation of the said
petition of bankruptcy or petition for arrangement did not exceed, in the case
of a person who has not on any previous occasion been adjudged bankrupt or
made a composition or arrangement with his creditors [#6,000], or in any other
case [#1,200]; or

(b)if he proves that in the circumstances in which he traded or carried on
business the omission was honest and excusable.

[(2) No proceedings shall be instituted for an offence under this section
except by or with the consent of the Attorney General; ...]

(3) For the purposes of this section, a person shall be deemed not to have
kept proper books of account, if he has not kept such books or accounts as are
necessary to exhibit or explain his transactions and financial position in his
trade or business, including a book or books containing entries from day to
day in sufficient detail of all cash received and cash paid, and, where the
trade or business has involved dealings in goods, statements of annual
stocktakings, and (except in the case of goods sold by way of retail trade to
the actual consumer) accounts of all goods sold and purchased showing the
buyers and sellers thereof in sufficient detail to enable the goods and the
buyers and sellers thereof to be identified.

(4) Paragraphs (9), (10) and (11) of sub-section (1) of section eleven of the
Debtors Act (Ireland), 1872 (which relate to the destruction, mutilation, and
falsification and other fraudulent dealing with books and documents) shall, in
their application to such books or accounts as aforesaid, have effect as if
"two years next before such presentation respectively" were substituted for
the time mentioned in those paragraphs as the time prior to the presentation
within which the acts or omissions specified in those paragraphs constitute an
offence.

S.27 amends s.12 of 1872 c.57

Interpretation.



[Index] [Table] [Search] [Notes] [Noteup] [Previous] [Next] [Download] [Help]

© 1929 Crown Copyright

BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.bailii.org/nie/legis/num_act/baai1929382/s26.html