The Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Information

57.—(1) Regulations may require the registrar of companies—

(a) to notify the Regulator of matters specified in the regulations, and

(b) to provide the Regulator with copies of documents specified in the regulations.

(2) A public authority may disclose to the Regulator, for any purpose connected with the exercise of the Regulator’s functions, information received by the authority in connection with its functions.

(3) The Regulator may disclose to a public authority any information received by the Regulator in connection with the functions of the Regulator—

(a) for a purpose connected with the exercise of those functions, or

(b) for a purpose connected with the exercise by the authority of its functions.

(4) In deciding whether to disclose information to a public authority in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom the Regulator must have regard to the considerations listed in section 243(6) of the Enterprise Act 2002 (c. 40) (overseas disclosures), but as if the reference to information of a kind to which section 237 of that Act applies were to information of the kind the Regulator is considering disclosing.

(5) The powers to disclose information in paragraphs (2) and (3) are subject to—

(a) any restriction on disclosure imposed by or under a statutory provision; and

(b) any express restriction on disclosure subject to which information was supplied.

(6) Information may be disclosed under paragraph (2) or (3) subject to a restriction on its further disclosure.

(7) A person who discloses information in contravention of a restriction imposed under paragraph (6) is guilty of an offence, but a prosecution may be instituted only with the consent of the Regulator or the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland.

(8) A person guilty of an offence under paragraph (7) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

(9) In this Article “public authority” means a person or body having functions of a public nature.