9.— (1) Where an offence under the relevant Acts has been committed by a body corporate and is proved to have been committed with the consent, connivance or approval of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of, a person who was either—

(a) a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or

(b) a person purporting to act in any such capacity,

that person shall also be guilty of an offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished as if the person were guilty of the first-mentioned offence.

(2) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, subsection (1) shall apply in respect of the acts or defaults of a member in connection with the member’s functions of management as if the member were a director or manager of the body corporate.

(3) Subsections (1) and (2) shall, with any necessary modifications, apply in respect of offences under the relevant Acts committed by an unincorporated body.

(4) Notwithstanding section 10(4) of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act 1851, summary proceedings for an offence under the relevant Acts to which that provision applies may be instituted—

(a) within 12 months from the date on which the offence was committed, or

(b) within 6 months from the date on which evidence sufficient, in the opinion of the person instituting the proceedings, to justify proceedings comes to that person’s knowledge,

whichever is the later, provided that no such proceedings shall be commenced later than 2 years from the date on which the offence concerned was committed.

(5) For the purposes of subsection (4), a certificate signed by or on behalf of the person initiating the proceedings as to the date on which evidence referred to in that subsection came to his or her knowledge shall be evidence of that date and, in any legal proceedings, a document purporting to be a certificate under this subsection and to be so signed shall be admitted as evidence without proof of the signature of the person purporting to sign the certificate, unless the contrary is shown.

(6) In this section, ‘relevant Acts’ means the Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889 to 2010.]