PART 4 PENALTIES AND OFFENCES

15 Unauthorised employment of accession State national - employer offence
1 A person commits an offence if he employs another (“the employee”) knowing that the employee is an accession State national subject to worker authorisation and that—
(a) the employee is not the holder of a valid accession worker authorisation document; or
(b) the employee is prohibited from undertaking the employment because of a condition in his accession worker authorisation document.
2 A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction—
(a) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks in England and Wales or 6 months in Scotland or Northern Ireland;
(b) to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale; or
(c) to both.
3 An offence under this regulation shall be treated as—
(a) a relevant offence for the purpose of sections 28B (search and arrest by warrant) and 28D (entry and search of premises) of the 1971 Act; and
Section 28B was inserted by section 129 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and amended by sections 144 and 150 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.
Section 28D was inserted by section 131 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and amended by sections 144 and 150 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.
(b) an offence under Part 3 of that Act (criminal proceedings) for the purposes of sections 28E (entry and search of premises following arrest), 28G (searching arrested persons) and 28H (searching persons in police custody) .
Sections 28E, 28G and 28H were inserted by sections 132, 134 and 135 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 respectively.
4 In relation to an offence committed before the commencement of section 281(5) (alteration of penalties for other summary offences) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the reference to 51 weeks in paragraph (2)(a) shall be read as a reference to 6 months.
2003 c. 44.
5 For the purposes of paragraph (1), a body (whether corporate or not) shall be treated as knowing a fact about an employee if a person who has responsibility within the body for an aspect of the employment knows the fact.