(a) (1) No foreign (other nation) bank (other than a bank that is licensed to maintain an agency or branch office) shall be issued a license to maintain a representative office unless it shall have first filed with the commissioner, in the form that the commissioner may by regulation or order require, an appointment irrevocably appointing the commissioner and the commissioner’s successor from time to time in office to be the bank’s attorney to receive service of any lawful process in any noncriminal judicial or administrative proceeding against the bank or any of its successors that arises out of the activities in this state of the representative office after the appointment has been filed, with the same force and validity as if served personally on the bank or its successor, as the case may be.

(2) Any foreign (other nation) bank (other than a bank that is licensed to maintain an agency or branch office or that maintains a federal agency or federal branch in this state) that maintains a representative office and that has not filed with the commissioner an appointment pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be deemed by the maintenance of that office to have appointed the commissioner as its attorney to receive service of any lawful process in any noncriminal judicial or administrative proceeding against the bank or any of its successors that arises out of the activities in this state of the representative office with the same force and validity as if served personally on the bank or its successor, as the case may be.

(b) (1) No foreign (other nation) bank shall be issued a license to maintain an agency or branch office unless it shall have first filed with the commissioner, in the form that the commissioner may by regulation or order require, an appointment irrevocably appointing the commissioner and the commissioner’s successor from time to time in office to be the bank’s attorney to receive service of any lawful process in any noncriminal judicial or administrative proceeding against the bank or any of its successors that arises after the appointment has been filed, with the same force and validity as if served personally on the bank or its successor, as the case may be.

(2) Any foreign (other nation) bank that maintains an agency or branch office (other than a federal agency or federal branch) and that has not filed with the commissioner an appointment pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be deemed by the maintenance of that office to have appointed the commissioner as its attorney to receive service of any lawful process in any noncriminal judicial or administrative proceeding against the bank or any of its successors with the same force and validity as if served personally on the bank or its successor, as the case may be.

(c) Service may be made on a foreign (other nation) bank that has appointed or is deemed to have appointed the commissioner as its attorney for service of process by leaving a copy of the process at any office of the commissioner. However, the service is not effective unless (1) the party making the service, who may be the commissioner, forthwith sends notice of the service and a copy of the process by registered or certified mail to the bank served at its last address on file with the commissioner at any of its offices in this state or at its head office, and (2) an affidavit of compliance with this subdivision by the party making service is filed in the case on or before the return date, if any, or within any further time that the court, in the case of a judicial proceeding, or the administrative agency, in the case of an administrative proceeding, allows.

(Added by Stats. 2011, Ch. 243, Sec. 3. (SB 664) Effective January 1, 2012.)